


Woven Loyalties

by blessedharlot



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Barton Farm, Bucky Barnes Fluff, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Canon Compliant, F/M, Focus on Female Characters, Found Family, Friendship, Happy Ending, Infinity Stones, Intrigue, Loss of Virginity, Mystery, Orgasm, Porn, Smut, Trauma Recovery, True Love, mind control mention, natbucky fluff, natbucky reunion, rotating narrator, staron fluff, violent fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 11:09:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7799395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blessedharlot/pseuds/blessedharlot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the immediate aftermath of a civil war between the Avengers, everybody’s got their own agenda. </p><p>But just how much of a mess did Zemo leave behind? What else did his actions put in motion? </p><p>Team Cap has unfinished business with one another… unresolved tensions and woven loyalties.</p><p>[Explicit rating is for: graphic sex in chapter 4, and brief moments of battle violence in chapters 6 and 9. The rest of the content is rated teen-and-up.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The next blow grazed Sharon’s temple, and she considered that maybe her plan wasn’t coming together as well as she’d hoped.

It had started off pretty great. Re-entering the scene of her recent theft of high-profile superhero gear seemed solid enough. It might not be the most obvious course of action, but she had watched the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre for months, from the inside. And she knew just how easily the whole place slipped a cog, when a dizzying apparatus of multi-level, multi-national police forces and policing of police forces all gummed up each others’ works.

The campus had been placed on “lockdown” -- which meant it had been slightly more difficult for her to get in than usual, and she wasn’t able to keep her sidearm with her. Steve’s shield and Sam’s wings had previously been stored in the armory on the south side of campus. The typically moderate security presence at the armory had now swelled with additional staff assessing the losses and guarding the big guns. Her accomplice was undoubtedly over there hiding in plain sight, dotting Is and crossing Ts with no one the wiser. It certainly pays to have trusted coworkers with expertise in covert asset retrieval and general espionage. Luckily Sharon’s target this time around was far-removed from that kerfuffle, and had even less security. She could get it without recruiting anyone for help. It really shouldn’t have less security, dammit, and Sharon’s pride was bruised that her workplace was so subpar on proper handling of sensitive information. It was ridiculous. But her boss had been stubborn enough to ignore every single one of her security recommendations. So here we were. Repeated infiltration shouldn’t be so easy. But it had been… right up until the punching and the guns trained on her, anyway.

One floor down from her personal office was a very humble evidence room. Sharon knew said evidence room was storing items from Bucky’s apartment and person. She didn’t know what they had confiscated. But while Steve was off on the more urgent part of the mission, she needed to investigate this herself. Maybe there was a lead on who was framing Bucky. Or maybe there was simply intel there that she wouldn’t want world governments to have about a friend of hers.

Bucky wasn’t her friend, of course. She only knew his impressively brutal fight style under mind control. But Peggy had been a fixture of her childhood… and Peggy’s friends, some retired Howling Commandos, had made plenty of appearances in Sharon’s life. She had some idea of how profoundly they had all respected the man Barnes had been. More than that, Steve was somebody that commanded Aunt Peggy’s loyalty. And Sharon’s time spent with Steve did nothing to suggest that loyalty had been misplaced. This… this was some good she could do. Helping the both of them. Completing the mission she started. 

The elevator opened on a floor as chaotic and unorganized as any other. But the hallway just outside the evidence room was nearly empty, and some lights near the security cameras had been taken out. There were no guards posted at the open security door. Sharon knew the most likely spot for a lookout to stand, just inside the door, and took a calculated risk in walking in unguarded. The right hook intended to take her off her feet swung well past as she dipped and landed a strike in her would-be assailant’s solar plexus. She kicked the large man in the head as he went down, and he was out for the count.

He was dressed entirely in black. How many men would they bring? One as a lookout, one or two getting whatever loot they wanted? Even on a busy campus, having too many would draw suspicion. Burly Goon hadn’t be silent going down, so she quickly passed a few shelves and ducked into an odd alcove. She nearly got caught off guard by Lanky Goon reaching her sooner than she anticipated. But she dispatched him just as quickly and continued back toward the bulk of evidence.

It was then that a blow caught her jaw out of nowhere and nearly knocked her to the floor. In the split second her eyes needed to adjust from the jarring there were suddenly three barrels pointed her direction, as well as this Lucky Goon next to her grinning in a really annoying way.

Six guys to loot an evidence room in broad daylight? Really? That’s just an awful plan. A pointlessly awful one, as opposed to her more elegant awful one.

Two were wearing the uniforms of the security officers guarding the place. Well, that explains that. The other two were also in nondescript, unprofessional black clothes. No JCTC badges either, they’re gonna stick out like a sore thumb all over the security footage that tagged them getting here. What were they…. Sharon sighed. Doing. It. Wrong.

Lucky Goon seemed to think she’d be easy to take out, and advanced like a linebacker. She saw it a mile away and shifted to help him slam himself into a shelf. He recovered quickly, grabbing her by the hair and shortcircuiting her punch in process. He swung again, just grazing her face. He was starting to find his groove though, making contact with her shoulder and then latching onto her elbow. He also landed a great headbutt on her, stunning her for a second. But she still managed to push hard off the floor with both feet and landed them square on his chest. The elbow he lost grip of then swept across his face as she got her legs back underneath her. For good measure she kicked him in the balls as he landed. Lucky Goon was a heap on the floor.

The three men with weapons still drawn hadn’t moved, and looked… pliable. She took a breath and acted fast.

“Gentlemen,” she gingerly approached with her hands raised and her voice set to demure and worried. “I am so glad you’re here. As I’m sure you know by now, there’s an entire set of master recordings from ABBA in here somewhere that we are certain have been targeted for theft in this chaos. I really appreciate you being here to help me secure those, thank you.” 

She could now reach the nearest guy, and spun him into a wrist lock until he was shielding her from the others. Nervous Gunman was completely alarmed already, so then being thrown into his remaining friends really seemed to shake him. One buddy took a metal shelf to the head on the way down and was out cold. A couple of kicks and the other two joined him.

Well then. Guns were quickly dispatched of… all but one. And she decided to start her search among the bins closest to the gunmen. This half-baked plan of theirs sure seemed like it could be motivated by a recent high profile apprehension like… yes. Barnes’ evidence was right at hand, and partially rifled through. Three bins, all marked with his case number.

The first bin had a sleeping bag, some candy bars, a tea kettle… really?... it didn’t look useful. From the second bin, she grabbed a notebook but left toiletries. The third bin gave her another loose notebook, an inexpensive pendant on a silver chain... and a backpack. She threw the chain and the loose notebooks into the bag, where they joined what appeared to be a dozen more notebooks and some random papers, including a flyer for a fair written in German, and an advertisement for the Kiev Ballet.

She stepped gingerly past the unconscious amateurs, and quietly said a complicated goodbye to this chapter of her career.

She left the room and left the floor without being stopped by any security -- this would definitely be going in her report, were she sticking around long enough to write one. If she hadn’t known any better, she would have certainly left via a route that exposed her to security surveillance. That much was at least in place. But she knew how to avoid getting tagged by the bare-bones camera coverage, and she took advantage of that. With a casual, roundabout exit from the building, she made it away without incident. 

It wasn’t until she had had a few hours to herself in a hotel room that she let her own emotional response start to unfurl.

She hated - hated - walking away from her job. 

This whole situation with the UN Bombing - and Barnes - was supposed to be exactly what the JCTC was created for… quickly mobilizing to address these incidents, assess leads, bring resources to bear on locating suspects and bringing them in for questioning. Questioning, and investigation. Not a kangaroo trial and not summary execution. And certainly not allowing detainees to be placed in harm’s way by infiltrating hostile parties. 

She had felt like she was doing some good at her post. She was in a position to bring justice to people who had been terribly harmed. Right some violent wrongs and protect others from being hurt. And as much as she hated her immediate boss there, she was getting seen by - and impressing - some major players in the intelligence community. It was a great career move, that would no doubt propel her forward. All that, gone now. For a man she didn’t know.

But Sharon let those feelings wash past. She had made her decision to leave the same way she made most big decisions in her life: with a detailed and rational list of reasons *not* to do the thing… and a gut feeling that she really should. Bucky was being framed, and used. It was the right thing to do. Sharon knew it. 

And now she knew a lot more. She’d spent the last hour figuring out just what she had obtained in exchange for her splitting headache. It turns out most of what she had were Bucky’s journals, kept while he regained his memories. 

They were… a challenging read.

Sharon felt shitty reading Bucky’s personal remembrances. This was Steve’s closest friend. She was sad this was the first big way she was learning about the man himself, as opposed to the history book entry of her childhood. And then there was the violence. Sharon didn’t exactly have a weak stomach, but even so, the man had been ordered to do some terrible, terrible things. If he was half the man she expected he was, this would all haunt him, for the rest of his life. 

But on top of all that, his writings laid bare the slow progression of him piecing together the living nightmares of his past, making it all that much more intimate for Sharon to experience. He often first remembered his victim’s faces - the color of their eyes or the shape of their nose. Sometimes they reminded him of the people he knew in Brooklyn as a boy. He would remember the feel of their skin when he laid his hands on them, or the various odors of perfume, breath, involuntary bodily responses to terror. He recalled a heartbreaking amount of detail. 

She was so grateful she got this out of the hands of those who wished him ill. He was a damn fool for writing all this down, which endeared him to her. 

Bucky had clearly undergone extensive psychological manipulation, and Sharon had already decided that when events had settled a bit, she needed to put him in contact with her old mentor. Dr. Isabel Marlowe had run SHIELD’s Thought Reform Recovery Program, Sharon’s first position after graduating from the academy. Besides being thoughtful and kind, Dr. Marlowe had done extensive work with victims of intense psychological coercion, and Sharon had witnessed first hand some of her success cases. She had a hunch Bucky would find Dr. Marlowe useful. 

She kept reading his journals, thinking maybe she’d find something that would get Steve and his friend a few steps ahead of the rest of the world. And maybe if she got the most complete understanding she could, she could spare Bucky the violation of having anyone else’s eyes on all this. Especially Steve’s.

She’d need to make sure she got a hacker to go in and wipe any electronic documentation of this the JCTC may have managed. So far she had already read her fair share of gruesome assassinations and outright slaughters of “undesirables”. She had details of his use as a training tool with other operatives, including techniques of extreme interrogation. There was the occasional shock of extensive arm work, or new mental conditioning. He was sent on retrieval missions occasionally, but there’s no apparent pattern to the items. A cannon prototype. A painting framed within another painting. A radioactive jewel, oddly enough. An unidentified object from a biological weapons lab. No details seem to help her right now, though, not that she’d found in the first three notebooks. She tried to avoid the memories from before the war, tempting and sweet as they were. They really weren’t any of her business, even with Steve involved, and they were highly unlikely to be of strategic value to them right now. She mostly succeeded at keeping those private for Bucky. She’d rather hear the boys tell her those stories themselves someday. Harder to keep private were the recollections he had of a young woman, with whom he had clearly fallen in love. She had worked with him - with the Soldier - first training with him and then assisting on multiple missions. So Sharon felt she needed to at least skim those sections, since there were Soldier’s missions involved. She shuddered to think how badly this relationship with the redhaired young woman would end. He had remembered several beautiful, intimate details, but hadn’t remembered her name yet.

After five of his journals thoroughly examined, she decided to again approach the book that looked so very different from the rest. One of the loose ones she had gathered, it wasn’t a drugstore-bought composition book like the rest. A red book with a black star, it was written in a different hand than Bucky’s, and - yes, she just confirmed - was entirely written in Russian. That was not one of the languages Sharon was fluent in, and there was little to indicate to her what the content might be. She wondered if Natasha Romanoff would be the best person to go to about this. She trusted Natasha as a smart, skilled colleague. And she had no doubt of Romanoff’s warm regard for Steve. The question is, would she be willing to help Steve with this right now? Would she see Bucky as a friend of a friend, in need of help? Or an enemy to keep Steve away from? 

After another hour of study Sharon realized she couldn’t remember when she last ate. 

Half an hour later, she tried not to dirty the notebook in front of her as she tore into her burger and fries from hotel room service. She read of more missions in South Asia; his handlers that year must have had extensive interests there. The young woman is with him. 

It looks like Bucky might have fallen asleep while writing, and when he woke back up he was ecstatic to have remembered her name in a dream state. Sharon couldn’t help but feel elation on his behalf at gaining back such an important memory. 

And then he wrote the name out. Several times. Lovingly, achingly. Clearly savoring it. First, middle and last name, reclaimed. Finally restored to him.

Sharon froze, and stared at the page.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been a long while since Natasha had scaled a building while this inebriated. She was glad to see she hadn’t lost her touch. When she ducked through her chosen window, her colleague in espionage was satisfyingly startled.

“Hi Sharon. I heard you were looking for me.”

“Natasha!” Sharon only paused a moment. “Yes I am. I’m... I’m glad to see you.” She smiled. She always looked like such a nice person. “My contact must have been mistaken about... uh. Are… are you drunk?”

What the hell kind of question was that? Nat squinted at her. “I’m on vacation.”

Nat set the near empty vodka bottle on the table and began to make herself at home in the motel room. Sharon’s face held questions for her, but she said nothing. 

“My team is, you know. Disbanded. So I thought I’d take a little vacation.”

“Oh yeah?”

‘Yeah. I did some jobs. Took some meetings with my accountant. You know, the usual.” Nat thought her nose itched, but when she scratched it, she didn’t feel anything. “What have you been up to?”

“Oh. Yeah. The usual. I um…” Sharon wrinkled her nose. “I quit my job.”

“No way.”

“It’s true. Wasn’t really a good fit anymore. You know? Time for a change.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Confiscated state’s evidence, stole some superhero gear on the way out.”

“Yeah, that was really cool of you. I was following you.”

Sharon was silent a moment. “I knew I had a tail on the way in. I... really thought I shook them.”

“You did. That was a freelance spook. Good catch, by the way. He was good. I’m better.”

“So I led you straight to them.”

“Yeah,” Natasha admitted. She squared her shoulders and met Sharon’s eyes, expecting more condemnation there than she found. Sharon looked resigned, and sad. Natasha knew the feeling. She shrugged. “Oh well. It worked out as well as it was ever going to.” Nat hadn’t expected her stomach to somersault when she said that. 

“I’m sorry Natasha. I have some guess how much the Avengers meant to you.”

Natasha was right about her. Sharon was nice. “You never really know who your friends are.”

“Did you hear about the break-in at the Raft?” Sharon offered.

“I did. Steve’s a good man.”

“Yes.” Nat noticed Sharon trying to hide a smile at that thought.

“So… what have you got and what do you need me to translate?”

Sharon had a very… careful look on her face. She knows, Nat thought. Somehow. 

“What I have is one handwritten journal, in Russian.” Sharon got up to retrieve it. Nat stayed where she was. This sitting thing was working pretty well for her at the moment. “No context to provide me with any idea as to content… except that it has something to do with the Winter Soldier.”

Sharon handed her a red book with a black star on the cover. Most of the content was encrypted but Nat had ideas as to what secrets it was hiding.

“I can probably help with this. What else do you have?”

Sharon sat back down and sighed. “I have about a dozen notebooks Bucky used to desperately keep a grip on his returning memories.” Sharon paused and her voice turned even more gentle than usual. “There are… contents… that make me wonder… if you might have any investment in helping him now.”

So Barnes remembers her. Natasha aimed for a guarded expression as Sharon spoke, one she doubted she was entirely achieving. Why did somebody so nice have to be the first person to discover this secret in a long while?

Nat took a breath. “The authorities have the fake psychologist. Barnes isn’t on the hook for the UN bombing anymore. What help does he need?”

“We have to investigate this ourselves. Zemo’s plan. The contents of… of Bucky’s memories. The JCTC certainly isn’t going to get this right. And you know he’ll be on the hook for a lot more than that. We need to get ahead of all this. Our friends’ safety is on the line.”

“Where are the journals?”

“In a safe place.”

Is she really going to… “Seriously?”

“Nat, it’s bad enough I had to violate his trust like this. No one else needs to see them. I know what’s there.”

“What else did you get from your office?” 

“The few files investigators had collected before Bucky was-”

“‘Bucky’?” Natasha challenged her. “You met him once and he sent you through a table.” 

“…before Barnes was brought in,” she conceded. “I have a quick and dirty INTERPOL search for murders in the US and the Russian Federation in the three months before the UN bombing. I have…” Sharon shrugged. “The name of a good therapist for Barnes.”

“That’s good, he’ll need that.”

Sharon looked hopeful at the comment. “I have the location of a silo where the Winter Soldier was kept, and where T’Challa apprehended Zemo last month. Though apparently a great deal of documentation from the site has gone missing.”

“Tony.”

“Tony was there too, yes.”

“No, Tony moved the documents.”

“What?”

“I may be on a bender but I’m still a spy. Tony moved several hundred file boxes of... something... from a location in Siberia to a warehouse of his in Arizona. Recently.”

“Well.”

“Yes.”

They sat in silence.

“Sharon, ask me what you want to ask me.”

Sharon pursed her lips thoughtfully and considered. Then her brow furrowed in empathy. “You must have been very young.”

“Not so young,” Natasha mused. “I had been killing for over a decade. But yes. I met him on my twentieth birthday.”

Natasha indulged in a moment of reflection, and then saw Sharon watching her. Sharon realized, “You loved him.”

“I don’t know what that means.” Natasha said honestly. “But he was important to me. Once.”

“How do you feel about him now?”

“I feel like I want him to stop trying to kill me and my friends.” 

“We might be close to accomplishing that.”

Natasha nodded. “It’s possible. I saw him at the airport. He’s… different.” She took a deep breath and her thoughts turned toward coffee. “Okay then. Show me what you’re willing to show me.”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“I prefer no cheese.”

“Cheese is a requirement but it must be thematically appropriate. And if there’s two patties it has to be between them.”

“Mayo, though. Always tasty.”

“No, never. Unless the whole thing is already inedible and there are no other options. Its blandness dulls the deliciousness of the other ingredients.”

Natasha sighed. “You’re just so wrong.”

“Ugh. They didn’t squish these properly either.”

“...excuse me?”

Sharon shook her head. “The first ten seconds or so that it’s on the grill, you have to smash it. That caramelizes the meat and seals in the juices. That’s the only way you’re gonna get a proper burger.”

“You have some deeply held convictions on this topic, Agent 13.” Sharon nodded at her while she continued. “And you eat like a recently thawed super soldier. I’m impressed.”

“Well I do have a girlish figure to maintain. You find anything interesting?”

“Not yet. What therapist were you talking about?”

“Sorry?”

“To recommend for Barnes.”

“Ah. My first mentor, besides Aunt Peggy really. Isabel Marlowe.” 

Natasha paused, taking the name in and measuring for a brief moment how much to disclose.

“Dr. Marlowe with the Thought Reform Program?”

“You know the program?”

Natasha took one last gauge of Sharon’s status in her life before responding. “Intimately. She’s very good. It’s true, she could probably help Barnes.”

Sharon paused and held her gaze as she nodded thoughtfully. “Yes.”

Natasha returned to what she was doing, and immediately found what she knew they’d been looking for.

“This is it. What more can we get on this case in Cleveland?”

Sharon peered over and realized the paperwork on it was incomplete.

“Smith. There’s no photo. The name Ralph Smith of Cleveland means something to you?”

“Look at the officer’s notes.”

“... found on site suggests the deceased had an alias of V Karpov.”

Natasha leaned back and took in hearing the name for the first time in a dozen years. “Well that’s it. The notebook is legit. Zemo killed him. Sit down.”

Sharon sat down next to her and waited. Natasha handed her the red book with the star and composed herself.

“Colonel Vasily Karpov was Soldat’s handler for… at least a decade as far as I can tell. In a profession filled with monsters, he stood out as a particularly vile man. I’m sure once the fiasco of renting the Winter Soldier out failed, he just sold him outright, possibly to Pierce. But he kept this book, which is what Zemo used to trigger Barnes. It’s got an activation code to engage his kill mode. Pierce had to manage without it, it seems. But-”

“But that’s why we fought who we did in Berlin.”

“Exactly right,” said Natasha.

“We have to get this to Steve.”

Natasha was filled with resolution. “No. We have to burn it. Now.”

“We can’t leave this trigger in place! We can’t doom Bucky like that. There could be other copies. Somebody else could… at any rate… if there’s a way to undo this activation code, to remove this thing from Bucky’s head, this book would be the key.”

“This book is incredibly dangerous to have anywhere, much less in proximity to Barnes. We need to dispose of it here and now.”

“You said there’s an activation code. That’s what, a phrase? A few phrases? What else? There’s pages and pages of content.”

Natasha suddenly had a headache. “Um, some schematic information, some specs on his arm, some minor details of programming. This…”

Sharon had obviously come to A Decision and Nat wasn’t sure she had the will to gainsay her. “Well this is all we’re going to get out of my intel right here. You should head to Tony’s stash. See what you can find. I’m going to… I have to get this book to the team working on Bucky.”

“... what?” Nat was taken aback by her phrasing. She still spoke of Dr Marlowe’s work with Barnes in the future tense. What team?

Sharon looked at Natasha with a defiant sort of trusting gleam in her eye. Nat had a feeling that meant trouble.

“Steve and Sam and Bucky have help. Bucky is back under, in cryo.”

Natasha didn’t know exactly what emotion it was in her that stirred so intensely at that statement, but she had a feeling some furrowing was probably going on somewhere on her face. 

“He chose it,” Sharon immediately assured her. “Going back under, with trusted protection, and guidance. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone else.”

“Where?”

Sharon looked at her meaningfully. “With a new ally, but a powerful one. A… decidedly non-extradition ally.”

“Oh,” chirped a startled Nat. “Interesting.”


	3. Chapter 3

Tony Stark's decisions were rarely reached as frivolously as he delivered them. Maria Hill knew that. She knew well that one of his reasons for cultivating that flippant frat boy charm was to encourage people to underestimate him. But he certainly wasn’t handed the entire empire he now commanded. And you don’t exponentially increase your fortune - and become Iron Man - without some shrewdness and a gift for strategizing. Maria appreciated both his tactics, and where they got him.

And he signed her paycheck.

So. If the boss wanted her to follow right behind the crack team of security she sent to this gig in - Maria checked her rental car map again to make sure she wasn’t imagining things -- Top-Of-The-World, Arizona, near the Superstition Mountains! Then there was probably a good reason. Of some sort. But that didn't mean she wouldn't get really annoyed at him. And none of this got her any decent Chinese food in this dump.

What a podunk little dirthole. Apparently Howard Stark's presence in the Los Alamos scientific community stretched to some facilities this far west. Maria either knew about or had a direct hand in Tony’s security needs at all of his currently active facilities. So as far as she knew this one hadn't been used in decades, until two weeks ago. Now an overfull security contingent and a skeleton crew of administrators had been brought in for what looked on paper like minor real estate management. A real estate firm with a voluminous pile of file boxes sitting contentedly in a profoundly secure storage space. She had to admit, her curiosity was piqued.

The initial check-ins with the security chief and admin director went just fine. She toured the items being stored and found nothing of note about the hundreds of locked and dusty boxes, except that they appeared to be labeled in Russian. She’d stayed for a few hours each day and each night for nearly a week to observe, but nothing out of the ordinary seemed to be happening. If Tony had any further details of exactly what she should be looking for, he was keeping mum. So she’d had all senses on alert since she arrived.

This night looked to be just as boring as the last. Everything was normal on all feeds throughout the small compound. Motion detectors throughout the storage space were quiet. Posts were checking in like clockwork. Guards were at their stations without straying or sitting. Without taking a break it seemed, either. They each shifted and shuffled randomly as Maria watched them on their feeds. But something seemed… odd. Too ordinary? The thought occurred to her that she could just be bored out of her mind and imagining things. But it was worth a change of scenery to get up and investigate the compound a bit.

She headed down a hallway that took her past the realtors’ offices and toward the storage space. The first cross intersection she came to gave her a distant look at a security desk where a guard stood. His stance looked ordinary, if slightly stiff, and he didn’t look her direction. She began to call to him, but thought better of drawing attention to herself. Instead she continued toward storage.

The security desk that controlled the main entryway to storage was completely unstaffed. As Maria came around the corner and passed the empty desk, she drew her firearm. She strongly suspected that the central security office wasn’t seeing it or her on their monitor. She was going to take one look in that room, and possibly, finally call for back up.

Except that, when she carefully opened the door enough to investigate, the room was quiet and ordinary. No staff of thieves, no goons keeping watch. Nobody in any direction. No change in light or temperature. Had she already missed them? At first glance there was no apparent tampering with the materials being held here.

Maria was quite thoroughly puzzled, and was ready to contact the main office to apprise them and get looking for missing staff and any lost materials. 

She was reaching for her comms when she heard someone calmly clear their throat. 

Dammit. Maria knew that cough.

She followed the sound to its source and found a redheaded intruder with her feet up, casually perusing some files obviously culled from the boxes around them. She was balancing a hacked facility laptop on her thigh as well.

“Hey Maria.” Natasha said breezily. “I hate to be the tattletale type, but your cleaning crew is doing a terrible job in here. These files are so dusty.”

Maria blinked. By her best guess, the motion sensors were still notifying the office of full functionality and no movement... in the room where Natasha had browsed for intel like it was spaghetti sauce at Walmart.

“Wow. A little brazen, even for you Romanoff. And a bit of needless work. Any reason you couldn’t just ask Tony for intel you wanted?”

“Maria, you can’t possibly be that far behind on Avengers gossip.”

Maria put away her gun and leaned against a shelf. “You think Tony’s gonna hold a grudge for your one little mistake?”

“It wasn’t a mistake. And it’s not his grudge Tony should worry about. You enjoying Top-Of-The-World, Arizona?”

“Absolutely. It’s beautiful here. Very… scenic. What are you looking for, Natasha?”

“Do you know how Tony’s parents died?”

Maria was dumbfounded at the asinine question. What game is she playing? “Pretty sure that was a car wreck.”

“Yeah. That’s probably why their cause of death is classified. That bit I probably could have found in the SHIELD files though, just for being willing to look. Did he tell you why he sent you here?”

“I’m his security chief and this is a brand new enterprise. Might as well start it off right.”

“No other staff here is trained for real covert work. At all. These are mall cops. You - YOU - were sent here, but given no instructions to catalogue all this? Except for transport, these files haven’t been touched for years. He’s just sitting on this intel but he doesn’t have the balls to look at it?”

Maria contemplated what Nat’s agenda might be, even as every statement she made resonated with questions on Maria’s mind for the past week.

Nat asked offhandedly, “Did you know Howard Stark had ties to Russian weapons dealers?”

Maria took in the information with a thoughtful frown. “Well it’s hardly surprising, is it? Best way to keep tabs on your enemies is develop some backdoor friendships with them.” 

“Well it looks like a pretty face turned Howard’s head just as easily as it would Tony’s. There was a major Russian presence hiding in his lab for years. Someone just as well trained as I was, by the same people in fact.”

“So, Howard was being spied on too. Is this old news going anywhere? You know what. It doesn’t matter. Step away from the files and leave. I’m not in the mood for this.”

Sure, walk me to my car, I’ve got a visit to make. But, Maria... one of these nights, when you get this bored again, you should check out this video.” She pointed at the laptop. “See why Tony packed all this up, shipped it here. And why he’s avoiding it now and wasting your time. Watch it and ask yourself why the legendary Winter Soldier was instructed to let himself be filmed. And ask yourself who the message was supposed to be for.”

Maria turned and eyed the keyboard, then glanced at the empty space Nat had left behind.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is an EXPLICIT, PWP chapter with Sharon and Steve. Tags could include virgin Steve, experienced Sharon, happy sex, oral sex, fellatio, cunnilingus, penetrative sex, piv sex, orgasm, condoms and sex advice.

To her left were the sleek, smooth lines and gleaming forms of the most advanced medical technology in the world. To her right, the panoramic greens and blacks of a lush, vibrant rainforest. Overlooking all of it, the graceful statue of a patron panther.

Next to her, Steve stopped in his tracks, grabbed her and hugged her again. “Thank you. Thank you, Sharon. This is so much help for Bucky. Thank you.” He sighed contentedly as he held her. 

When they pulled apart he kept her in his arms. “This is an inadequate response to this long list of things I owe you, I know. I…” His brow furrowed with a hint of delight. “I’m going to need to start working on paying you back.”

“Yes. Soon. Don’t worry, I’ve got a few ideas for you.” A huge smile spread across Steve’s face, so she continued. “What are you up to... tonight? I mean,” she didn’t have far to move to take hold of the arms that already embraced her. “We’re in the same place at the same time. And I have no work obligations. So I have to believe there’s something that will pull you away.”

“Tonight? Ooo let’s see. I have to review my itinerary. I, um… wow.” He looked at her with a bit of mock surprise. “I am not aware of a single world-ending event being planned.”

“What?”

“I think it’s true. I have a villain-free agenda for the night.”

“Hmmmmm.” Sharon stroked his arm. “Then you should definitely take me to your favorite restaurant in town.”

-=-=-=-=-

The meeting earlier in the day had left Steve beaming. Wakanda, it seems, has had their own reasons to explore recovery from mental manipulation in some depth, and Bucky’s doctors had already made some amazing discoveries. They’d been able to begin some treatments already, with Bucky still in cryo, and the results were promising. And new information Sharon had brought would take some major guesswork out of assessing their progress.

Sharon assumed that was a huge part of the reason Steve was so giddy. But she was also going to credit his mood to the fact that she and her backless silk dress were taking every available opportunity to brush against him surreptitiously while they were in public. She also took care to notice the sensuousness of her meal, feeling the textures against her lips and perhaps using her tongue more conspicuously than was strictly necessary.

She was performing, she realized after the first course. Her most coy smile. Her most sultry gaze. She just laughed and flipped her hair, for God’s sake. And once or twice, she vaguely wondered why. It really wasn’t her usual style… staying in control, being seen. Crafting an image to show to someone who she hoped would see her completely naked later just always struck her as odd. Impractical, counterproductive. Not worth the trouble. 

But in this case. oh my. There were the times his breath caught in his throat just looking at her. There were his precious guileless grins. There was his truly remarkable, super-soldier-sized clumsiness showing itself for the first time. And there were the beet-red expressions of a Steve both entirely out of his element, and entirely gleeful about it. He recognized the performance for exactly what it was: a fun game to play. And he was just so happy she was there playing with him, that he was perfectly content not being able to keep up with her. She decided it was worth the trouble, and kept up the performance for a while.

Then they were given the most delightful, delicious, silky, sweet cake after their meal, and she ran out of patience for her performance.

“Oh my god, okay. This is amazing.”

“Yes it is.”

“No seriously, you need to try the darker stuff on top. Try it.” She spoke around a decidedly non-alluring mouthful of food. “Amazing.”

Steve laughed and his eyes twinkled, but he was still not sampling this heavenly cake fast enough. He clearly did not understand the gravity of the situation.

“Try it!” She commanded again. Okay this gesture probably wasn’t going to be smooth and seductive, but it was necessary. She loaded up a proper forkful of it and reached across to him. 

He managed to catch most of it in his mouth just after a few crumbs went tumbling down into his lap.

“D’oh!” She exclaimed. But most of her payload made it, so she counted it as a success. “Great, right?!”

Steve nodded and laughed. Sharon paused… and took a breath… and just drank him in. He was so very handsome. And yet the thing that truly made her heart skip a beat was all that he carried in his eyes. All the changes she had seen in them in just the couple of years she’d known him. The light she had seen come alive in them once he found his friend again. The slight purple underneath them that he had carried since losing half of his teammates in this conflict. The faint cloudiness that’s crept into them since Bucky chose cryo. The sparkle they had whenever he looked at her.

She put down her fork and asked quietly, “Are you finished?”

He held her gaze as he answered. “Definitely not.”

“Let’s get out of here, then.”

“Yes.”

-=-=-=-=-

The guest dormitory wasn’t far from the science center that cared for Bucky, sitting on the edge of the same glorious, untouched rainforests. Their quarters had a central sitting room with a glass wall that continued around each of the individual bedrooms. Entering Steve’s room, Sharon wondered how often he kept the floor-to-ceiling curtains open the way they were now.

“Wait,” she whispered. “Don’t turn the light on yet.”

Her shoes and purse gave a muffled thud as she dropped them out of the way. She took his hand and walked them both carefully forward until her hand pressed up against the glass.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Steve said. “I can stare at it for hours.” The full moon and a stunning spray of stars gently lit up dark blue ripples of teeming life as far as they could see.

He shifted behind her, and whispered. “You can see the cat from here too.”

“Oh? Where?” She turned in the direction it must be, but hadn’t found it yet. He brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek and nudged her head a little further to the right. 

“We’ve come around the corner to it… a side view. His tail is the usually the first thing I can see.”

She gasped a little when she found it. The moon outlined the top and side of the stunning statue.

Steve’s hands had settled on her shoulders. She took one of his hands in hers and spun around to face him in the moonlight.

He leaned down to kiss her… hesitant for just a moment before they both slid into a long and languorous exploration. Lips meeting, and parting. Breath taken and given. No rush, nowhere to be. Just flesh, eager to learn. 

She pulled his hips toward hers, and then realized she had no idea which direction to take him in the dark room. “Okay, where is your furniture?”

He giggled and turned on a nearby lamp. She surveyed the tasteful and impeccably kept room to find a bed and a loveseat as options for sitting. 

“Loveseat?” She raised an eyebrow as she offered.

Steve hesitated, seeming to deliberate the choices. Then he picked her up by wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing her close. She wrapped her legs around him and he sat down on the loveseat.

“So, uh, you should know…” he cleared his throat as she began to explore the area directly below his right earlobe.

“Mmhm?”

“Um…” He exhaled heavily as she kissed his neck.

“Steve, how much experience like this do you have?”

“Like this right here?” He pressed his hands to her hips. “Some. Yes. Any... further than this? Um. No. Not… any.”

Sharon smiled wide. “You are perfect.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you dare apologize.”

“It just seems like… most lovers want… a partner who’s practiced.”

She kept nuzzling his neck. “Mmmm, yes we should definitely practice.”

His nervous tone took on a hopeful note. “I *was* subjected to several educational conversations during the war by self-proclaimed experts. I’m certain that will put me in good stead here.” He smiled wryly.

Sharon gleefully wrapped herself around his head as she laughed.

“That’s wonderful.”

She pulled back and he was smiling.

“Do you want to go further?” She asked.

Those eyes had a naked hunger she hadn’t seen before. He nodded.

She reached for the hem of her dress and shifted it up to her hips. “Take my dress off.”

Sharon watched his chest rise and fall with his excited breaths, as his warm fingers trailed up her thighs and cool air brushed her stomach. He pulled the dress over her head to reveal her garter belt and stockings, underwear, and her bare breasts.

Steve groaned in pleasure. He leaned in just breathing and taking in her closeness. His hands started on her thighs and shyly worked their way up to her hips and lower back. She lowered her arms slowly back down to his shoulders, watching the bare lust in his face as her breasts sank into their fullness in front of him.

His hands gently traced aching lines across her back and waist, and he brought his lips in just close enough to kiss her on her breastbone. She felt his labored breaths come and go across her bare skin until a hand of his moved and cupped her breast and he pressed his cheek to it. Even as his hunger grew in persistence, he moved with such innocence, such gentleness. A warm shiver shook her.

She wasn’t entirely sure when she had started grinding into him. But she knew the second she felt his erection press back. Sharon wasn’t surprised, but she was definitely stunned for a minute. The serum really did make everything big. And hard.

As she tugged at his hair to pull him into a deep kiss, he picked her up by the waist to lay her down on the loveseat and climb on top. He instantly pulled away in hesitation, but couldn’t get far with the lock she now had with both legs and arms. 

“Are you okay like this?”

“Yes!” she said emphatically.

“So I’m not… am I too heavy to be on top of you?”

“No, it’s exhilarating. Put your whole weight on me.” 

He did so, leaning in to kiss her neck as he did.

She heard herself moan, and felt the skin of the nape of his neck prickle. He snaked his way down to a nipple, and pulled it into his mouth for an instant. She whimpered.

He looked up with slight confusion. “Good sound?”

“Goodyesgood.”

He returned to what he was doing.

When she couldn’t lay still enough anymore she grabbed him by the face and pushed him off with a kiss. She then nearly ripped his shirt pulling it off of him, and got his belt off nearly as quickly.

With that she stood up in front of his seated form and tried to catch her breath. She swayed her hips gently for a minute, fingering her garter belt and the fasteners. He could only sit, forearms on his thighs, mesmerized. She slowly unfastened the garters, one by one, and tossed the belt aside. 

She stepped between his legs and leaned in until she could feel his breath through the thin fabric of her panties, then she dipped down and grabbed his pants to gently get him to his feet.

She pressed her full body into his and he whimpered. He couldn’t quite figure out what to do with his arms while she unfastened his pants and let them slip to the floor.

“Black silk boxers. Look at you.”

“What were you expecting?”

“Something patriotic.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

She answered that thought with a string of incredulous incoherence.

“I really didn’t know what would be… sexy.”

“These are perfect. They’ll look great on the floor.” 

They both smiled. And the boxers did, in fact, look good crumpled on the carpet near his feet.

The rest of him, though… good was not the word. 

Of course he was thick and chiseled, everywhere. Of course. Arms, legs, torso, all infused with that gentle, massive strength. His erection was the largest and hardest Sharon had ever seen. 

She could just imagine the porn career he could have.

Sharon placed her hands on his forearms and kissed him on the chest. She met his gaze with a sly smile on her face, and then she inched her way down… slowly planting kisses on his arms and belly until she was on her knees. Then she gave the underside of his cock a firm lick from base to tip.

He gasped, and looked down at her with an expression she couldn’t quite place.

She put her hand between his cock and his belly and began kissing the same seam she had just run her tongue on. 

“Oh my God Sharon. What are you…?” He moaned in a desperate, ravenous way, but put a hand on her shoulder and said “What…?”

She stopped kissing and left her hand where it was. “Is something wrong?”

He was gasping for air. “Not… wrong. I just…”

She moved her hand away too and waited patiently for him to figure out what he was trying to say.

“This was… do you want to be doing this?” He seemed genuinely confused.

Sharon’s eyes got wide with amusement. “Yes. Very much so.”

“This was just… always…” He frowned. “The guys would talk about…”

She thought she was beginning to understand. 

“Do you want me to stop?”

He looked torn. “Not if you don’t want to.”

She had a thought. Maybe… maybe if they were on more equal footing. Or...

“Here, help me up.”

He seemed relieved to be getting her off her knees. She led him to the bed and tossed him onto it. His returning smile was encouraging, so she climbed on top of him too. They kissed while she writhed against him, eliciting groans. 

“This good?”

“Uh-huh,” he answered enthusiastically.

She slinked her way down, and stopped at his cock.

“This good?”

“Yes,” he immediately answered. “Yes. Yes.”

She leaned in to slowly resume kissing his cock while keeping an eye on his face. 

He relaxed into it now, murmuring in pleasure. As she increased using her tongue she laid a hand on his stomach; he immediately grabbed it with both of his hands, holding it to his chest and stroking all he could reach of her arm. As he took in the pleasure, he leaned his shoulders in toward her to watch, then arched back again and moaned, repeatedly. She moved on to sucking as well as she could - she was no slouch, but this was a lot to work with. 

At that point Steve had interjected tiny, whispered yesses while she worked. Sharon stopped and sat up, licking her lips. For just a second she ran her fingers under the band of the panties still circling her hips. Then, leaving them on, she sat back to stretch out next to him on the bed.

He eagerly followed her, pulling her into an embrace and kissing her deeply. His hands bolder now, she gasped to feel his warm skin slip across her bare ass, pressing her pelvis into his. He then laid her back, putting a pillow under her head, as he got to his knees next to her, eyeing her panties.

He licked his lips and looked Sharon in the eye. Then he hooked his own fingers into either side of her last garment, and looked at her one more time. When she nodded, he slid it all the way down and off. As she kicked them away he grabbed an ankle and kissed the tender inner side. He moved up and kissed the inside of that knee, spreading her legs as he did so. When he had one leg on either side of him he stopped. He took her breath away -- this beautiful bare creature on his knees, between her thighs, one of her calves still in his hand. And he just held her gaze, lustful and breathing heavily. She didn’t know if she was about to come or if her heart would burst. Or both.

“You are so beautiful, Sharon,” he whispered. “So beautiful.” 

He lowered his eyes slowly, drinking her in, until his gaze rested between her legs.

She watched as several emotions crossed his face… awe, and then confusion. And then a sort of devious curiosity. “What do you… what do you do to... enjoy yourself?” He asked. “Show me, please.”

She felt herself smile, then reached down and spread her lips so he could see. 

He settled down on his stomach, wrapped an arm around her leg and rested his face on her thigh, watching intently. Sharon slid her fingers up and down her slit, dipped them deep a few times. Then she settled into showing him every pleasurable pattern of clit-rubbing she could think of. For a few minutes she lost herself in watching him watch her fingers work.

Then he asked, “Can I taste you?”

“Absolutely,” she growled.

And she sighed as she watched that amazing jawline disappear between her legs. She prepared herself for far more clumsiness than she got, immediately feeling his eagerness radiating pleasantly down her legs. 

“Ohhhkay.” 

He paused to ask “Is this alright?”

“That’s better than alright. You can definitely keep doing that.”

After a few long straightforward licks, he started exploring licking at various angles… and whenever she gasped or moaned he started targeting his attention. While Steve was certainly inexperienced, the boy had a solid instinct to bring to bear on the job. This… yes.

“Oh. Okay. Okay… okay STEVE!” Oh. She hadn’t meant to shout that as though she were looking for him in a crowd.

“Right here, sweetheart.”

“At some point... in the next few minutes... I’m gonna start screaming.” 

His brow furrowed in concentration. “Okay.”

“And whatever you’re doing... when I start --” She grabbed his hair with both hands and pulled herself down to his face for emphasis. “You MUST... keep doing... that exact thing... until I stop. Okay?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Okay?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay.”

“Yes.”

“Alright. Oh God. Go back to...” He resumed what he’d been doing. “Yes… yes.”

Is he nibbling? Using his lips? How does he know to… she hadn’t even gone into… yup. There was definitely going to be screaming. 

Sharon thought she might have grabbed Steve’s head with both hands and pressed his face further into her pussy. But she was wasn’t certain of anything anymore, and then she felt a deliciously ecstatic bolt of lightning surge through her, and heard her own voice go hoarse after what felt like several minutes of shouting.

She went limp on the bed, and Steve joined her, looking equal parts euphoric and very pleased with himself.

“So you’re saying that worked for you?”

Sharon’s head might have nodded. Maybe. There was definitely a smile on her face. She did manage to fling an arm in his direction, she knew that much.

Then she caught her breath. “Hey. You should go find my purse. Please.”

She got a fantastic look at his ass as he got up and brought her bag to her. She opened it up and started looking for what she wanted.

“I’m glad I took the liberty of assuming you needed the largest size of condom.”

“Oh thank God. I, uh, I’m so sorry. I did do some research but I was… not yet prepared.”

“Understandable. Let’s see how this fits.”

She rolled him over and by force of habit - since they had paused their activities a few minutes - she went to stroke his cock to get it hard again. But this super soldier sex worked a little differently. In no time she had the condom on. That would do. And while she managed perhaps a minute and a half of building more tension up by rubbing her fully body against his, she quickly lost patience with NOT riding him cowgirl-style, and rectified the situation. 

The vision of his eyes rolling back in his head as she first slipped his cock inside her was glorious. Sharon never wanted to forget it. She took him in and sat there a moment, adjusting to his girth and watching him enjoy the sensation. Her gradually easing herself on and off worked seemed to work just fine for him too. For some time she lost herself in riding him… the rhythm of pulling up and pressing back into him, stretching away and pressing him back inside her, over and over again. He caressed any part of her he could get his hands on.

Sharon was fond of reverse cowgirl too. But when she began to shift to turn her back to him, he stopped her.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m turning around to ride you the other direction.” she said conspiratorially.

He looked a smidge concerned. “Will I be able to see your face that way?”

She was momentarily taken aback by such intense adorableness. Then she looked around. “I don’t think we have a useful mirror here to make that happen.” 

“... do you… is it okay if you don’t then?”

“No, I don’t have to.” She put a hand on his cheek and he smiled. “C’mere.”

She stretched herself out on her back. Laying beside her, he ran a hand all the way from her shoulder, down her waist and hip, to her knee. Then she pulled him on top of her. With her legs wrapped around him and her hands on his hips, she slipped him back inside her and guided the thrusting for a while. He was clearly nervous he might misjudge his strength and hurt her. But eventually, their rocking shifted to something he was guiding. She could lay back and enjoy his careful, ginger work, in and out, in and out. This rest came in handy, because it also turned out Steve could unsurprisingly keep this delicious situation going a long, long while. He was so conscientious, and curious, he took his time and explored long thrusts and short ones, hurried and languorous, and all kinds of combinations in between. 

She instructed him on how to press forward and brush the front of her mound as he thrust, and she came again in his arms. When she was done, he abruptly stopped moving.

“I… I think I’m going to… come soon. I think.”

Sharon smiled broadly. “Ohhh okay!”

“No I don’t…”

“You can come inside me.”

“I don’t think… if I lose control… ” His brow furrowed and his jaw tightened. She took his face in her hands.

“Okay, that’s okay. Do you want to come on my tits?”

Steve gaped at her wide-eyed. Then he nodded vigorously. She took off the condom and guided him into straddling her chest as she leaned back on her elbows. She licked her lips, smiled and really, very thoroughly enjoyed her view as he took his cock in his hands and vigorously brought himself to orgasm. He kept his eyes locked on her the whole time, as she wondered if she might come again. And he made quite the wonderful mess. They might need to talk to somebody about a condom tested to handle that girth and that volume, quite frankly. At least if they wanted to keep using three different forms of birth control. Which, she did. Who knows what super serum does to his little swimmers. She wasn’t ready for that. 

He collapsed into the most exquisite heap next to her. She insisted he stay there while she toweled off, and she immediately came back to cuddle with him while he caught his breath.

“Well. I hope… that my inexperience wasn’t too trying for you.”

“It was adorable, and a lovely part of exactly who you are right now.” Sharon caressed his cheek. “And you are remarkably good at going down on a woman for never having done it before.”

Steve took that in and laughed. “Um.” 

“What?”

“We can… I think we can thank Bucky for that.”

“... excuse me?”

“He…” Steve shook his head. “I don’t know who or where. But somewhere he got some early experience with somebody. We were just about 17. And he was so very proud of himself. He was cock of the walk - ew, if you’ll pardon the expression - for a while after that.”

Sharon giggled.

“But he insisted on lecturing me, several times,” Steve rolled his eyes. “...regarding all the things I should know. Much of which I took with a grain of salt, and have mercifully forgotten. But one of his tips…” Steve shrugged, and spoke hesitantly. “It sounded fun! So it stuck with me. He said, treat a girl’s privates... like your favorite ice cream cone.” Steve looked at her questioningly.

Sharon was stunned. “But… that worked.”

“It did, then?”

“That’s... that’s not horrible sex advice!”

“Huh. Okay then.”

“From a 17 year old Bucky Barnes?”

“Unexpected, I’m sure.”

“It really, really is. Wow. Well. I do owe him some thanks then.”

“I look forward to not being present for that conversation.”

“So I was curious,” she laughed. “I wanted to see what terminology you were going to use. For body parts. Old words, newer words. But we managed not to use any.”

“Oh. Well, my mom was a nurse. So growing up, we used appropriate vocabulary. Penis, vulva, breasts. If you’re going to talk about them, you use the right words. The Barnes household…” He tilted his head a bit. “I won’t repeat Mr. Barnes, but Mrs. Barnes would tell me to... have some care which girl’s pantry I dipped my candystick into.”

Sharon laughed.

“No matter how many times I assured her that no pantries were being offered to me, so it really wasn’t a decision I spent much time thinking on.”

“That had to change after the serum.”

He shrugged. “A little. There were a few… aggressive fans after the shows on the USO tour especially. But…” He shook his head. “Nothing like this.”

“Mmmmmm.”

“Do you need anything?”

“Nnhn. Nothing but this. How was your first time?”

“Perfect. In every way.”

“Mmmmmmm.”

They kissed. Yup, that was perfect too.

Before she knew it, Sharon had drifted off to sleep in his arms… probably, she thought, with a big goofy smile on her face.


	5. Chapter 5

Natasha peered down the expanse of the jagged cliff, and watched as dislodged rocks spilled further and further down. The individual who had hold of her throat didn’t seem to be tired yet of dangling her above the chasm. So at least there was that. 

“It’s a little insulting... that you... couldn’t threaten me yourself,” Nat choked out. “Hiring... a goon... to do your dirty work for you? Not really Red Room style.”

“I have no interest in impressing you, Romanoff. I simply want to know why you think you can stick your nose in my business, waltz across my path bandying about a name buried decades ago.”

“I really don’t... waltz anymore.” She coughed. “Can’t find… a partner with... the class to do it properly.”

“You’re not half as witty as you think you are. And you have ten seconds to give me a reason not to give my friend Elias the great thrill of throwing the most notorious Black Widow to her death.”

“Well, I don’t work... for your old Pentagon connection. How’s that for a reason?”

That was enough, at least, to throw Nat’s target out of her smug rhythm. Good.

It had taken Nat over a month to get this far with the Stark Lab’s leak, even knowing her name and multiple aliases. 

Three different trusted connections of Nat’s had bad intel on this woman. Nat had found useless excitement in a back alley in Singapore, in a suburb of Dubai, and in a little hamlet in Ireland before ending up here, just outside Portland, Oregon, to find Irina Vasilek, a graduate of the Red Room at the height of its prestige. She was now a disgraced and distrusted former spy. 

The aging femme fatale would have expected Nat to know she was spying on Stark all those years ago. She also would have expected Nat to have proof that she was spying on Karpov’s behalf. Nat had no hope of surprising her on those counts. What Vasilek clearly didn’t expect was Nat knowing that Karpov wasn’t the only one she was spying for.

“Irina... you’ll want to have a drink with me. Chat about old times.”

“Are you going to explain to me why I will be cooperating with you?”

“Sisterly loyalty.”

Nat had rarely seen such spite on a face. So that’s a no.

“I can help you clear your name. Get a better job... in a better place.”

“I like it here. And I like my cloudy name.”

Alright then.

“Then sit with me and talk… because I know where your son is.”

This struck the nerve Nat had hoped for. There was always the chance that Vasilek had already managed contact with him. That was Nat’s biggest fear. She didn’t have another ace as good as this one. But Vasilek’s look when her son was mentioned made it clear. Nat’s hunch had been right... this was her way in.

Vasilek motioned for Elias to let go of Nat the kinder way. Nat didn’t let on how good the solid ground felt under her feet. As Nat reached into her pocket, Elias’s hamhock of a fist squeezed her right trap hard enough to suggest that drawing a weapon would be a bad idea. Nat slowly pulled a small photo out of her pocket, and handed it to Vasilek. The image had very little to identify location, but clearly showed a man in his twenties. Though Vasilek wouldn’t have seen him for ten years now, it was unmistakably a recent picture of her son.

When the light hit just right Nat could see a few silver hairs in the woman’s elegant, dark upsweep. Vasilek had that versatile olive skin prized among spies. There were three dozen ethnicities around the globe Vasilek could portray in an instant. 

Vasilek’s interest may be piqued, but she wasn’t yet convinced. “For this threat to work, you would have to truly keep that information from me if I don’t comply. This is my son.” She nodded. “My blood. Taken from me. You are an Avenger, a good guy now. You would not do such a thing.”

“I don’t think you’ve been properly informed of my extracurricular activities.”

“And your friends approve?”

“Meh. A Captain America-sized set of scruples just isn’t ever gonna be a goal of mine.” 

Vasilek examined Nat’s face another minute or two. Then she silently turned back toward the nearby trail and led them to her small cabin. Nat much preferred this way of traveling the foothill, instead of what had been necessary to sneak up on the two of them while they hiked.

Everything about the cabin was rough-hewn. If the elder spy had ever had the more refined tastes many Red Room girls developed, there was little trace of it in the cabin. Nat sat where she was instructed to, with Elias studiously stationed between her and the door. Vasilek poured. None of that fancy vodka, of the type that might actually get approved for sale into the US. Nat could tell this was the, um, heartier stuff, in an unmarked bottle. She wasn’t ready to play by Vasilek’s rules, though. She stared at the drink Vasilek had just poured her, then hefted the bottle and took a swig.

“So,” Natasha began. “Your man at the Pentagon?”

Vasilek huffed, and gave Nat a steel glare. “Found me out before Stark did. Not a smart type of man though. More the type with lots of eyes everywhere. I was careless one time.”

Nat took another swig and held the woman’s gaze. Vasilek stewed in her bitterness.

“I fed him a bit here and there. False leads that would take time to unravel. Nothing of consequence. He knew Stark had Russian connections and he thought I could keep him current on both sides of their conversations.” She shrugged. “Karpov was smarter than both of them. On this count.”

“What happened when--”

“No. My turn.” Vasilek demanded. “Is he a mindless beast? A slave? When he’s green?” 

Nat decided against revealing her disdain for the question, opting for a stoic expression instead. She sat the bottle down slowly.

“Do you remember their exercises where they withheld food and sleep? Sometimes clothing too. Until we… well we usually found our rage. Didn’t we? I suspect it’s a bit like that. He still has his own agenda, even under duress.”

Vasilek eyed her curiously.

Nat drank again. “Why kill the Starks? Why both of them? I know Karpov was a bit bloodthirsty but it really... wasn’t strictly necessary.”

Vasilek finished her drink and poured again. “He was angry. And he thought it would clear the way to him getting his treasure back.”

“Treasure.”

“There was a gem. Kept in a lead box. Very dangerous. Very powerful.” 

“What did it do?”

Vasilek got a cold, distant look in her eye. “Death, destruction. It killed anyone who touched it.” She came back to her calculated expressions. “I could not determine what it actually was, or how Karpov obtained it in the first place. But he had it at his lab when Stark visited in 1990. And a month later it disappeared. Karpov was enraged. It was my job to infiltrate Stark Labs and find it.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Stark was offensively easy to fool. It was a simple matter to infiltrate. But I was finding nothing, and Karpov was getting impatient. I was beginning to think I should disappear before I was made to disappear, when Stark discovered a formulation for the serum. I thought that would be my salvation.”

“So you sent Karpov after the serum instead?”

“Yes.”

“And Karpov, in turn, sent a message to...” Nat had a thought. “...to the person Howard trusted with the stone. The one most likely to end up with the video of the murders.”

Vasilek poured herself another. “What IS the alien god like? The same weaknesses as other men?”

Nat considered her options moving forward in the conversation. Then she picked up the glass Vasilek had poured her and drank it it one gulp. “The same weaknesses as any man that lives a thousand years.”

Vasilek met her eyes and chuckled.

“The gem is terrifying.”

“Why?”

“It changes people.”

“Death is a change, yes.”

“No, they found other ways for it to influence a body. Besides the annihilation of touch. I don’t quite know how.”

“Who found those ways?”

“Karpov, and Stark both. I don’t know about anyone else. The serum Stark made was laced with the gem’s effects. In a weakened form.”

“Weakened?”

Vasilek nodded casually. “Oh yes. Stark used it in his formulation quickly before it got shipped away. They didn’t have the time with it that Karpov’s team did. His subjects could, ah...”

Vasilek sighed and poured herself another.

“I met one subject who could detonate nonexplosive items at will. There was another who would just turn them to dust. Several could create some sort of dark blue light… emanating from them, send it around the room like a tornado. Most went mad before any powers arose. Their mental capacities, all of them, were… unhinged. Tampered with.”

They sat in silence a moment as Nat absorbed the information. Vasilek stared at her long and hard.

“Why do you want to know all this?”

Nat reflected on Vasilek’s face a while. Then she smiled. “Knowledge is power.”

Vasilek looked down at her drink. “You are more like your friends than you admit.” She got up, found paper and wrote something down. Then she handed it to Nat. Seven cities, Russian and North American.

Nat searched her face. “Stockpiles from the experiments?” She asked. “Maybe even the gem?”

Vasilek sat down silently.

“Is there anything else you remember? Maybe about the gem itself?”

“Oh I never saw it outside its casing.” Vasilek smiled sadly, but proudly.

Nat nodded, took a breath, and pocketed the list. “Sasha still gets shuttled around the system, although not as often as he used to. But, somebody is still holding a serious grudge. He’s been at Krasnoyarsk for nearly a year. But I have word they’re preparing for him at Ariyskhe in a weeks’ time. Under the name Evgeny Sokolov. Which gives you time to plan and hire.” Vasilek finally managed an inscrutable look on her face, a poker face worthy of her training. Perhaps out of a sense of victory. Or relief.

Nat finished her drink, got up and headed for the door. Elias looked at his boss and stepped out of her way.

Vasilek called out after her. “You’re not going to ask me who my Pentagon contact was?”

“I already know.”


	6. Chapter 6

Family ties are powerful, no doubt. But they can also wither too easily. It doesn’t take a big event, or fanfare. They need to be nurtured with time and care, on a regular basis. They’re built on presence, on being there. And if you don’t put the presence in... 

Sam sighed to himself. Wakanda had been beautiful. Stunning, really. Safe. Almost relaxing. Almost. Being somewhere on the globe that so few outsiders had been… it was the kind of experience that reminded him why the crazier parts of the Avenger gig were worth it. But it wasn’t home. It wasn’t his sister’s kitchen table, or his brother’s garage.

Sam was glad to be heading back to see them, if only for a short visit. And he was glad to have a spy-type covering his back. He hadn’t dared come visit since the Raft. He couldn’t bear the thought of bringing trouble anywhere near his nieces and nephews, who he missed terribly. But Sharon had skills in covert travel beyond his or Steve’s talents, and so he was relying on her to get them there in a manner safe for everybody.

Apparently, for the moment on this passenger train, that meant him and Steve on one end of a train car and Sharon on the other end. Sam found it a little awkward and overdramatic... but with comms, it worked well enough.

But for some reason, Steve reflecting back to Sam all his biggest worries right now was NOT working for him. It was really, really grating.

“Look, I’m not saying forever,” Steve continued to explain. “I’m just saying for a little while.”

“Please stop trying to kick me out diplomatically. You’re gonna wound my fragile pride. How long you gonna last without me?”

“Well, fair point, but-”

“And do you have any idea how quickly I’d get bored?” Sam pointed out.

“You weren’t bored with your life when we met, were you? You were relaxed. You found a different way to help people.”

“We’ll find ways to help people in this situation, too.”

Steve sighed. “Even with those wings, you’re the most grounded guy I know, Sam. And I know you miss your family. I’m just… I’m just making sure you know your options.” Steve had his serious face on now. “Just because you came to my rescue when I needed your help doesn’t mean you have to live like a fugitive for the rest of your life. We’ve got some strings we can pull.”

“And be beholden to Tony Stark more than I already was? Hell no, thank you anyway.”

“Guys, something’s up,” Sharon interjected through their earpieces. 

Steve did a slow glance over his shoulder toward the back, while Sam scanned the front of the train car. Nothing stood out.

“What’s going on?” Steve asked.

“Not sure yet. Nothing’s *entirely* outside of normal parameters, but…” Sam could hear Sharon puzzling over something as she spoke. “Something’s wrong.”

Sam trusted her instinct, but had no frame of reference for action in this particular setting. The intrigue stuff was still new to him. “So how do you want to handle this?”

“Let’s move out of this busy car. The observation deck on the one behind us stays pretty empty. I’ll head that way slowly. Follow me in about two minutes.” 

Steve responded. “Understood. Go ahead.”

Sam felt himself shift into a higher-alert, ready mode as they waited. Soon Sharon let them know that the observation deck was deserted. A minute later, he and Steve got up to head that way.

That’s when Sam saw him, as they stood up and turned. Sam continued as natural as he could manage, considering his sudden unexpected spike in nervous energy. He followed Steve and quietly filled the team in over comms.

“We’re being watched. Dude in a denim jacket, 6’5” resting rude face, front of this car.”

Steve opened the door at the back of the car, having learned at least enough about covert work not to turn around and look. “Did he get up to follow?”

Sam entered the space between cars and spun around to close the door behind them, while Steve opened the door to the next train.

“Yeah. He’s coming. And he doesn’t look right.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a… there’s a blue light coming out of his head.” When did his life become this, Sam thought. “How about we pick out a quieter spot for him to come find us?”

Steve and Sam ducked quickly up the stairs to get to the observation deck. There were seven other passengers there, fewer at least than the car they just left with four dozen people. Steve stayed at the top of the stairs they’d taken in. Sam didn’t see Sharon, though he heard her next concern. 

“The civilians.”

“I got ‘em.” Alright, time for the Wilson-in-charge voice. “Folks, we’re gonna need you to move immediately to the next car. Just a little glitch we need to fix. No need to worry but there is a need to move. Thank you for your swift cooperation. Thank you.”

He had them up all and moving, with the first three in the crowd clearing the back door, when Sam heard behind him the loud thuds of a supersoldier being tackled and thrown violently against a wall. The person closest to him panicked, so he amped up the assertiveness and ushered the last ones out.

He spun around to find Steve at the other end of the car, being suspended in the air by his throat. The same barrel-chested blonde dude from the car below was now somehow at least 2 feet taller and a foot wider, and had an aura of dark blue light around the entire top half of his body. Whatever had happened with Sam’s back turned had Steve stunned and sputtering for air.

There was nothing for it. No real cover, no element of surprise. Sam sped down the car, aiming for the dude’s chest as Steve saw and flailed, trying to distract the guy even a little. At the very last minute Sam pivoted to throw an uppercut into their mystery opponent’s arm. 

It didn’t break his hold but it pained him enough to drop Steve back to the ground. From there Steve got the traction to put a precision kick to the guy’s temple, right as Sam managed a crotch kick from the floor. He was stunned enough to let go of Steve.

From there Sam and Steve both rushed him, slamming him against the side of the car. The windows behind him shattered, and Steve and Sam both winced at the shards of glass thrown back toward them. Blue man took the chance to swing at both of them, throwing them a few feet away in the process.

As Sam was busy landing on the floor, he heard a roar from their opponent. He looked up to see the guy stunned and disoriented as Sharon’s feet withdrew out the window and back above the train. Dude spun around to look outside, just in time to catch a second kick to the face. Blue man’s head snapped back but he kept his feet, even as Steve and Sam headed back to re-engage. 

This time the man managed to grab Sharon’s ankle, trapping her. He held on through Steve’s sleeper hold and Sam’s kick to his knee, finally yanking Sharon through the open window as he lurched backwards. She yelped and flew through the air as blue man landed on both Steve and Sam.

Everyone scrambled to their feet, the three of them still moving faster than their mystery assailant. Sam felt pretty good realizing that they had him surrounded. They may all be a little worse for the wear… but he was too. This should wrap up soon, if they played their cards right. They might even get some answers out of Mr. Rude-n-Chokey.

Dude eyed the three of them. Then he balled up his fists at his side. The dark blue aura got thicker and cloudier around his whole body as he jumped straight up into the air... and landed with a blue smoky plume billowing at his feet.

Sam thought for a split second that the train had collapsed underneath them.

The shockwave made a deafening sound as it ripped through the traincar. The floor under their feet buckled, but held, as screeching metal rang out from either end of the train. The blow took out every remaining window in their car, and Sam guessed from the screams that the effects spread for at least several more cars in either direction. 

Sam’s mind was still reeling, reaching to sort out what the hell was going on, when he realized blue man was pulling something out of his pocket and turning toward Sharon. Sam again went for the attacking arm, this time with a drop kick. Sam didn’t stop the throw, but his kick shifted the angle just a hair before the man could release the object. Sharon had seen and ducked away too, only just in time, so there was a two foot wide slice of empty air between her and the projectile. They watched what appeared to be a glass tumbler from the train food service fly through the air - imbued with a dark blue glow. It struck an aluminum bench nearby, which immediately warped and crumpled into a pile of jagged metal.

Sam did not, under any circumstances, want to see what this power accomplished when thrown on a person. If they didn’t get him contained soon… Sam wouldn’t go there yet. Focus on now. Focus on weakness, anywhere you can find it. Sam was in close quarters on one side of the guy, just hammering him fast as he could. But he was slowly realizing that the force of his punches against Blue man’s torso seemed to evaporate instantly. Steve was on his other side, dodging a swing and looking for an opening. It’s times like these that Sam really missed Steve having his shield.

Two shots rang through the air. Sam kept his eyes on his opponent even while scanning his awareness of the space around him for anybody flinching or dropping. Who even had a gun? He didn’t bring one with him. Then, as dude came close and swung at him, Sam noticed two bulletholes in the guy’s forehead.

“Well, damn,” he said, after dodging the blow. At least the bullets in his head might start slowing him down soon. Man, being an Avenger brought strange thoughts into your life. 

Sam heard three more rounds discharge, and saw the guy flinch a little as his chest took the hits. He was stunned, then raged and roaring. The dark blue energy around him got more erratic with jagged crackles

Sam had an idea. “Come on!” he yelled.

And he roared right back at the giant, making a show of squaring up. His disoriented opponent tried shaking off some of the effects of the bullets by tossing his head a bit, then he noticed Sam’s show and decided to half-lunge, half-lumber toward him. 

Sam lured him in the proper direction, then evaded him at the last second. Then there was a wet clunking sound, and a gurgle.

The bare frame of the bench Blue man had previously warped was now threaded through his abdomen in two places. He struggled against it but didn’t have the power to lift himself off. He slammed his legs against the floor, and when the shuddering it created wasn’t enough, he pulled himself further down the iron bars to reach the uneven floor with a hand, and pushed. The resulting lurch of the car nearly lifted one side off the rails. But the train maintained its balance. 

And their assailant stopped moving. His body began to slowly but surely deflate back to the size it was when Sam first spotted him.

“Well.” Sharon warily holstered her gun, and looked at Sam, then Steve. “Shit.” 

Steve said, “Yeah. I’m going to have to agree with you on that.”

They all stood there, catching their breath. Sam noticed Sharon’s forearm was likely fractured, her head bleeding, and Steve should have a few cracked ribs as well. Sam had one hell of a headache.

“Dammit,” Steve said. “All this and we couldn’t even question him.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m fine with not having had a conversation with him,” Sam offered. “To be completely honest with you.”

Sam looked around and realized they were being watched, through both surrounding cars, by what looked to be security and assorted staff. He sighed audibly.

Steve and Sharon looked around and noticed the audience. Steve looked stricken, and searched Sam’s face for answers. When he found none, he looked for Sharon, who had gone to the window to look outside. 

The sun hadn’t quite set, and the sunlight was at the perfect angle to highlight the bucolic pastures on either side. Sharon turned and looked at each of them appraisingly, then motioned them to follow her toward one end of the car.

Sam followed hesitantly behind Steve. They were fugitives, after all, who had just drawn a whole lot of attention to themselves. But the people there parted for them silently. Sharon ushered Sam and Steve to a viable exit off the train, and then she gingerly raised a hand in deference to the stunned security guard behind them. The guard returned the gesture, and stood there as the three of them jumped off the train, one by one.

Dammit, Sam thought, as he safely but painfully came to a rolling stop in unknown grass. He was going to have to miss another nephew’s birthday.


	7. Chapter 7

“No word for seventeen hours!”

“They’ve been at this for months, why is seventeen hours getting you anxious now?”

“Bucky hasn’t been awake for months. They haven’t been actively testing his programming for months. They started this procedure seventeen hours ago, never mind the one before it and the one before that. And I’m half a world away so I can’t go knock down the door and make sure they’re all okay.”

Clint and Sam exchanged indulgent glances. Sharon sighed. Patience was usually one of her gifts. But her grip on patience was slippery these days with so much at stake, so much of her heart invested, and no control whatsoever over the outcome. She should have gone with him. “Steve should have contacted me by now.”

“Give it time,” Clint offered as he peeled potatoes. “This is all entirely unpredictable.”

“Any word from Natasha?” Sharon worried about her too, as she cut into the veggies a little too aggressively.

“Nope,” Sam replied, skinning some salmon. “But it’s Nat. She’s good. Don’t overchop my broccoli.”

“What about the guy from the train?”

“Yeah, the…” Sam took a breath. “Seven dead, before he came for us. Quietly, in a very calculated fashion. For no clear reason either… no connections to us or any possible mission we can find. Just… random civilians.” Sam looked at her with regret. “Dude just did not care.”

Sharon drew in a breath to sigh, then thought better of it. She put the knife down and stepped outside to clear her head. All the better to see the fireflies collecting in Clint and Laura’s spacious front yard.

What a brilliant idea, secreting your family away in paradise while you crack heads and take names. She was filing this strategy away, should she and Steve have kids.

Holy crap. She startled herself with that thought. It’s already “she and Steve” in her head as the parents of her future kids, not just her. That was terrifying. They’d only just started really dating.

She worried if she should have brought the notebooks, to have them close by to return to Bucky. If he was ready, if he came back from Wakanda. She worried about Steve’s spirit if this didn’t work. She worried about the toll this was taking on Nat… and she wasn’t even sure Nat was aware herself how much she was carrying right now. She worried about a lot these days. Their people and their intel were spread too thin, and it wore her down. She would feel much better when they had reassembled, and finally had a clear direction to take this mission. 

Well, nothing to be done for it right now. She tried to stop grasping at things she didn’t have. Instead she took a deep breath, and drank in the sunset, trying to notice every shade of color in the clouds billowing from the horizon.

As if in response, her phone buzzed with a message.

“Bringing him with me. :-) Be there soon.”

-=-=-=-=-=-

Well, at least some assembling was going on now. The place was full of Avengers… none with red hair, but the rest of the ones who mattered to her were accounted for. 

It was chaos. 

Everybody had something to do, and for some reason they all needed to do it in the living room. 

Sharon watched Clint try to catch and feed the kids. Cooper had spent most of the week dutifully caring for his little sister Lila and baby brother Nathaniel, but they all seemed a bit stir crazy today. Clint was valiantly working on slowing them down enough to eat. 

Sam was returning from mission prep work, with the two folks from the Raft breakout who Sharon knew the least. New guy Scott apparently had some gifts in obtaining things through dubious means, and as a result they were hauling in and sorting what looked to be computer and communications equipment. She’d hoped they would manage a bit more firepower than what Clint already had. But no such luck. Sharon didn’t know Wanda well, and the young woman had been nothing but professional. There was a heaviness about her, though, that some of the others suggested had gotten stronger since her time on the Raft. 

Laura had now begun supervising the thieving trio’s transport work, having just returned from supervising Steve and Bucky on their own mission. In true Barton hospitality, the two men with superstrength had been recruited almost immediately upon arriving to help with a fallen tree and related debris. And Bucky’s new arm was as impressive as his old one, it seemed. They had returned from completing the task, and now Steve, Bucky and their clothes were all currently confined to not-the-carpet. That put them in prime position to get sucked into a conversation with the multitasking cook, Clint, on the one sport that bored Sharon to tears -- baseball. Steve and Clint were immediately getting rather passionate about some aspect or another. Bucky - by the looks on his face - clearly had opinions. But maybe Steve was covering them all because Buck was quietly listening so far.

Bucky had been mostly reserved, awkward and deferential with everyone. Sharon thought maybe his recent medical successes were responsible for a… a subtle happiness about him, and probably also contributed to the sense that he was more than a little disoriented. While she had worked for some time with Dr. Marlowe on matters of mind control, Sharon hadn’t experienced it herself, and could only imagine what it was like to have portions of your identity and consciousness played with and removed like chess pieces - even for life-giving reasons like his recent treatment. Sharon didn’t have to imagine where the melancholic or standoffish parts of Bucky’s demeanor came from. But he had immediately shaken her hand warmly upon meeting again, and called her “Steve’s girl.” What might irk her coming from anyone else was a clear sign of esteem from him. Steve said he had already told Bucky that she read his notebooks, though it didn’t seem to be reflected in his interactions with her in any other way than a quiet knowing in his eyes. Sharon had caught a glimpse of him watching her as she first greeted the arriving Steve with affection. It brought the silliest, most endearing genuine grin to his face. Just right out on the Barton driveway, the Winter Soldier had a moment of goofiness that his best friend had a girl. It was impossible not to root for him. 

Right now - in all the living room commotion of hot dogs, designated hitters and ill-gotten gains - Sharon was curled up on the couch with a laptop, scouring the data again… looking for anything she missed, any threads of patterns Nat might have gone looking to fill. She had a couple of ideas, but they were hunches more than anything else. 

At least three others heard the sound at the same time Sharon did. They had various weapons in hand and were bolting outside just as it crescendoed into a deafening roar. 

“Jesus. Who invited him to my house?”

“You think he cares about being welcome?”

The jet smugly landed in the Barton backyard, and Tony sauntered out of it in his custom suit and sunglasses.

“We need to talk,” Tony announced.

“So talk,” Clint countered.

“In this mud puddle? Come on, where’s that down home Barton welcome? One little family scuffle and it’s gonna be like this?” He threw glances around the crowd. “You don’t exactly have the greater casualty list here, so how about not being assholes?”

“Shit, Stark, don’t dribble all your charm out in one place.”

“Clint.” Laura had joined them, Nathaniel on her hip. “Come on in, Mr. Stark. And please behave yourself. Or I’ll take you behind the woodshed myself.”

Tony smirked as he followed the Bartons inside. Sharon watched Wanda’s face emanating rage as they all re-entered the house, and she casually ended up at the young woman’s side. “Good job not killing him, or destroying the jet.”

“If I destroy the jet he’ll just be here longer. I can’t speak to the long-term reliability of the engine, however.” She was pensive for a beat. “And his seat has sustained significant damage.”

Sharon smiled ruefully. This would be an interesting meeting.

All the Avengers present gathered around the kitchen table, and Tony magnanimously took a place at one end. Sam and Clint sidled their hostility right up close to him on either side. The rest gathered around, with Sharon taking a seat about halfway down one side. Bucky pulled up a low seat over her shoulder, distancing himself from Tony and the table. Even Laura stayed, hovering behind Sharon and Clint, having apparently been quite sincere with her promise to keep Tony in line. Cooper took the younger kids upstairs. Sharon wondered briefly if their presence would have kept anybody calm or less threatening. This was certainly bound to be tense.

“So. Here’s what we’ve got.” Tony took control of the meeting as though he was CEO, immediately opening gadgets and displaying multiple projected screens of information in midair. “Weapons factory outside Volgograd, major theft of their R&D lab, specimens and documentation. Nobody has my gait recognition software, so Russian authorities haven’t noticed this security footage from about a mile away the day before.” 

One screen showed an unremarkable view of people walking a city street… though now that Tony has said so, Sharon thought one form had something very familiar about her. His recognition software flagged the same figure an instant later.

Tony continued. “Four days later, in Perm, scientific station of the Russian army quietly reported a theft to their superiors. The day before the theft, in the Perm train station, this footage was captured.”

Again, Sharon never saw her face. But Sharon immediately guessed who it was, just before the search engine got a ping on her.

“That same week there’s deep background buzz about two ‘unaffiliated’ Russian science labs running into problems with inventory not being where it’s supposed to be. In both of those cases, there’s also talk of fatalities.”

Sharon interjected, “And you implied air quotes on ‘unaffiliated’ because…?”

“Because they’re unaffiliated. Far be it from me to guess what underground communities of bad guys are willing to throw a little money at unsupervised scientists.” 

“Right,” Sharon replied.

“Why on earth are you helping the Russians with some random R&D thefts?” Sam asked.

“I’m not helping them. I told you, they don’t have this intel. They haven’t linked any of this together. I have. Because I went looking into this.” Tony dramatically clicked his remote to bring up new footage.

Three more bland scenes of small crowds on streets. But one was definitely that same woman. Another had a flash of red hair on a familiar stride. One clip even caught the side of her jaw. All flagged.

“Natasha,” Steve offered.

“ATMs, traffic cameras… all footage from towns where Stark Industries had a break-in recently. The perpetrator - or perpetrators - are never caught on *my* cameras in the act. No incriminating evidence left on the scenes. Ever. This is Stark security somebody got past. Repeatedly. And not even bothering to leave me a thank you note for what they’re stealing.” Tony looked pissed. He swept his hand toward the screens. “This? Is the result of my AI sweeping nearby footage and doing massive cross-checks on anybody I know of who’s capable of cracking my security.”

Sharon heard a very quiet snort close by. Was that Bucky?

“So what’s been stolen from you, Tony?” Steve asked.

Tony leaned on the table with both hands and shook his head. “Old stuff. Dad’s stuff. Back of the vault-type items.” 

“You wanna give us anything else to go on, man?” Clint said.

“Look, it’s dead-end research from two decades ago. It’s covered in dust. She’s got no business breaking in, getting it and taking it to God knows who! You really want *your* friend doing this? Selling off our shit to the highest bidder?”

“Now she’s *our* friend?” Sam argued. “What? Her supporting you through all the Accords business isn’t enough to count her as a friend anymore?”

Tony huffed. “I’m supposed to be grateful she was spying for you?”

The room rumbled with annoyance. Steve, who had been one of the calmest, got that look in his eye that Sharon knew.

“Tony, she was trying to keep us together! She’s wasn’t spying! She was your friend. She was family!”

Tony was quiet. But Steve wasn’t done.

“Did you tell her that? To her face?” He waited a beat but Tony gave him nothing. “No, I want to know. Did YOU tell Nat - to her face - that she was a spy you couldn’t trust?”

Tony glared at him silently.

“Dammit, Tony!” Steve’s jaw clenched.

“One of you has to know.” Tony said quietly. “One of you has to be in contact with her. Fine, there’s no love lost between the two of us. But she’s shared something with one of you. I know it. There’s too much history in this room for it to be otherwise. Clint.”

Clint chuckled “What? What do you need us for? You’ve got all the intel! Go track her down. Shine that trademarked Stark Creepy Light everywhere and stop her.” 

“That’s not how this works.”

“Right. Because she’s too damn good for you to find. All you can do is catch a whiff of her perfume long after she’s walked away.”

“You think she’s not in any danger here? Fine, we broke her cold marble heart in this divorce. So I’m sure her thinking is 100% clear right now.” Even while Tony tried to play off sympathy, Sharon saw his eyes were angry and his jaw was tight. “She’s your best friend. Clint. You were sent to kill her and instead you convince her to defect? That’s not some kind of bond there? She hasn’t come to you with any of this?”

It looked to Sharon that Clint was handling his anger by checking out. He leaned back, put his feet up, shook his head and laughed. “Man. I’m her friend, Tony. Not her parole officer.” He glared at Tony.

Tony kept plying the room. “Cap. You two ran a training program together. Long hours. Sorted through philosophical differences, I’m sure. That’s lot of close work. She was your ace in the hole getting Barnes to Siberia. You’re not going to contribute anything of substance to this conversation?”

“I got nothing, Tony. She lost the Avengers. That meant something to her. And I’m as much to blame as you are. She’s not talking to me.”

Tony sighed. “Sam? Her friend.” Silence. “Sharon!? Your training here is the closest to hers. What’s she up to? What have you heard?”

Sharon decided to err on the side of caution. Exasperated caution. “Tony, I have no idea.”

“Wanda? Hm? Perfect time to sell her out for leaving you in the pokey.”

“Go to hell.”

Tony nodded. Then he got a crude little smirk on his face. “Barnes?”

Shit, Sharon thought. Please don’t. This isn’t the way to…

“Barnes. Surely you can contribute something here.”

“Tony, stop grasping at straws and just-” Sharon felt a hand on her arm. It was Bucky’s. She stopped and turned to him. He glared at the surface of the table while Tony continued.

“Look at all these blank faces. Am I really the one who gets to share this juicy intel?” He giggled. You asshole, Sharon thought, you’re actually enjoying this. “Am I the one who gets to tell the Avengers that the infamous Winter Soldier… trained… the notorious Black Widow? I mean, I hear training was involved in between the rest of your… what should we call it? Dating’s probably not the right term. Off-hours fraternizing?”

Sharon couldn’t help but look at Steve as he began processing the information. She was sure Tony was hoping to stir some feelings of betrayal among them all with this. But Steve’s shock gave way only to a quiet joy, comingled with an immediate sadness for his friends. It didn’t take much to imagine how a love affair for either of them would end.

Tony wasn’t done jabbing. “You might not have known your name, or whose lives you were ruining, but I guess with a curvy redhead around, you sorted out how to get the little soldier in and out of the foxhole, huh?”

Steve stood up and silently commanded Tony’s attention with a terrible glare. The room seemed to hold its breath. 

It was a quiet Bucky who found his words first.

“Well.” His jaw worked to stay unclenched as he spoke. His gaze at Tony could have been called pure rage, if his eyes weren’t so sad. “Since then… I’ve tried to kill her. Three times. So.” He took a breath and nodded. “Yeah, I’m avoiding her right now.”

At that point, Clint was done with the meeting. He slowly stood and took a step toward Tony.

“Get out. And don’t ever come back.”

Tony looked around the room, and concluded his presentation with a final warning. “Get me back my stuff.” Then he gathered his toys and left unattended.

As soon as he’d gone, Bucky stood and left the table. As he passed Clint, Clint put a hand on his shoulder. Bucky did nothing to stop him, but didn’t look at him either. Bucky stood there for a beat, expressionless. Then he left out the back door.

Steve surveyed the room and took a shuddering breath.

“Well then,” Sam said.

“Sharon,” Steve asked. “Do you know anything about Nat’s plans?”

“She’s working on the same thing I’ve been working on… clearing Bucky, getting a step ahead of anybody else who might be after him. She was going after leads we found in Zemo’s papers. She didn’t fully explain to me. I…” Sharon searched for answers. “I really expected to hear from her by now.”

“Okay,” Steve was obviously shaken, and was dealing with it by taking the lead. “Does anybody have any real information on her whereabouts? Clint?”

Clint ran his hand through his hair. “Cap, I really just assumed she was off licking her wounds. Something hits her this hard… she’s either here with the kids or she drops off the radar a while. Or both.” He shrugged. “I haven’t worried. It’s Nat. She always shows up again. But…”

“Tony’s right about one thing, we need to track her down. Coordinating this many missions and this much... merchandise, of some kind. She may need backup. And she may not be thinking clearly.”

“I have a couple of ideas,” Sharon said. “I’ll cross-check locations Bucky was sent on missions against major science-based military installations. And, Nat and I discussed a psychologist that I’d really like to check in with. She might know something.”

“Sharon, you talk to the psychologist. Get us the list, and the rest of us will split up and scope out those locations.”

“If you don’t mind, Cap,” Barton said, “I’ve got a hunch I’d like to play. And I may need Barnes’ help.”

Steve nodded. He looked to Sharon, this time searching her face. She could see it in his eyes - it was dawning on him that she’d known. She met his gaze with an unapologetic sadness. There were a lot of emotions playing across Steve’s face, but anger at her wasn’t one of them. He headed in the direction Bucky had gone.

Sharon went to gather up the intel she just promised them all.


	8. Chapter 8

Natasha was just able to make out their recognizable silhouettes closing the distance between them. 

We’re all of us just a little too late to catch the big prize tonight, she mused. 

Clint must have thought to check in with Leo, whose big mouth came in handy sometimes. Had Clint only brought Barnes with him? Well, alright. They’d make it work. Her comm hadn’t picked up anything from them yet, so she shifted it to her next guess for their most likely frequency.

“... kinda ridiculous if we don’t even know what we’re walking into.”

Natasha’s stomach trilled just a little more than she anticipated at hearing that voice again. It had been so long.

“That’s why we’re casing the joint, dude.”

Interesting. Barnes was already on Clint’s “dude” list. She eavesdropped a while longer.

“With no intel. At all. And who knows what kind of enhanceds inside,” Barnes said.

“Sam and Steve got you spooked with that train story.”

“No reason not to be spooked. People have gotten way too weird, Barton. And more freaks every time I wake up.” 

“Yeah yeah, back in your day, old man.” His jabs at Barnes got more hushed, and there was a faint creak on comms as Clint got through the outer gate. “Things were different then! Just some supersoldiers, talking skulls, powerful stones from outer space. Old-fashioned problems. Not like kids these days.”

Barnes grunted. “I don’t think I like you.”

“He is kind of an acquired taste,” she interjected.

They both froze for a second as her unexpected voice filtered through their earpieces.

“Girl, where’ve you been?” Nat could hear Clint’s smile.

“Oh here and there. The Riviera is so busy these days, it’s impossible to get any privacy.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Clint sympathized. “A nasty abandoned Costa Rican factory full of questionable activity in the middle of the night is definitely a better vacay spot.”

“The big boss I wanted has already cleared out of here, but these guys still have at least part of my payload. We should definitely still introduce ourselves.”

“I love making new friends. I got my fashion on me, I’ll find the catwalk.”

“Good. I need Barnes with me at the back door. We’ll double team in.”

Barnes had been silent, and for a moment she wondered if he would say anything to her at all.

“Barnes? Do you copy?”

“I can get in the front door, squeeze them in from both sides,” Barnes replied.

“No. I’ve seen these guys up close. They’re huge and enhanced, we need one coordinated battering ram going in. Clint can still pick him off from the other direction, keep them cornered.”

He still hesitated. “I... thought you’d-”

“Come on, Barnes, I don’t smell that bad. Get your ass over here.”

A shorter pause. “On my way.”

“So. Nat,” Clint chatted. “I feel like I had another question to ask you. Um…” She heard a tap that she guessed was his bow gently scraping something on the roof. “Oh yeah. What the hell are you hunting down?”

“Okay. Short version: the other Winter Soldiers in Siberia had the MILD version of a serum that’s been stockpiled in various locations. Stark derived a secret ingredient for his from some kind of powerful jewel.” 

“Jewel?” Clint asked. “Is this another Infinity Stone?”

“Possibly. Karpov’s death jumpstarted some paranoid mad scientist types to resurrect a dormant program that runs on the jewel. I’ve tracked down and destroyed most of the known inventory and shut down one of the leaders.” She felt her voice get tense from frustration. “But I haven’t found the other leader, or the stone yet. We need to grab what’s still here, and take out some of this whole damn juiced-up army while they’re spread thin over a transport job.”

Nat saw him slowly approaching her position. She shifted to take up more space than she strictly needed to in her little pool of darkness. 

So when Barnes arrived, he was forced to step right up next to her to keep cover. 

They stood there, eyes adjusting, feeling each other’s body heat. After all this time, after all that’s happened, their faces now just a few feet away. On a different side of the fight. Together. 

She looked at him unflinchingly. He was practically pressing himself back against the edge of the darkness, muscles tensing to keep as much space between them as he could… as though just touching her again would lead to harm. But he was meeting her gaze, and trying so very hard to keep a blank face. It was unnatural for him now though, with too much of himself packed into that head. Just behind the blankness she could see grief, and lust. And maybe, hidden as far back as he could manage, a fondness for her still burning? Good.

Nat decided to use Russian just then. 

“So I hear some Wakandan doctors chased the Hound of Hydra out of your head,” she said quietly.

He seemed transfixed for a moment, just gazing at her face. Eventually, his eyes wandered away as he weighed her statement. He replied in the same tongue. “Surgically removed my obedience training,” he quietly offered. Then he met her eyes and managed a hint of a smirk. “I’m my own dog now.”

Oh, Jesus. That face really was a double-edged sword. Dammit, Nat, pull yourself together.

The back door of the building was thrown open at that moment, and two of the largest humanoids Nat had ever seen came through. Barnes began to move into position to attack, but Nat held him back. The two guards carried something out to a truck and went back inside.

Barnes switched to a whispered English after they’d gone. “Where’s your firearm?” 

“Not worth it.”

He gave her a look of deep confusion.

“Listen to me, both of you. When you’re in close quarters with these guys, strike fast and fall back quick. The power they have, they can send it through you or any object around you if they can get their hands on it. The force is concussive. Clint, anything they throw at a distance will have the same explosive force to it when it hits.”

Barnes nodded next to her and Clint responded verbally. “Copy that. I’m in position. I see... nine on the main factory floor, all… really damn big.”

“There’s two more in a back office. Eleven total,” Nat responded.

“Well, let’s draw them out, shall we?”

Nat and Barnes had just finished climbing up to a high window. “We’re in position.” Nat saw him pull out a gun anyway.

“Hail of arrows in five, four, three, two…”

By the time the shattered window glass reached the factory floor thirty feet below, Nat had landed feet first into the face of one guard. Barnes had temporarily laid out two with his weight after discharging six rounds on the way down, and it looked like four guards had arrows in their necks as they looked around trying to find the source. Nat immediately sent a Widow’s Bite into two of the guards and out of the corner of her eye she saw Barnes land a few punches as he shot twice more.

The two-prong attack was keeping the enhanced fighters from mounting a concerted response… but by twos or threes they were still deadly. Nobody here was a one-punch battle, and Nat knew they were outnumbered three-to-one. 

She instinctively used the racks, tables, and assorted factory equipment to bottle up the guards’ movement and minimize their advances… but that still often meant one on either side of her. She ducked, spun, jabbed, cut and floated from one to another. One finally lay unmoving… and after several more minutes of fighting, another. Each enhanced had two to three feet of height on her. Obviously she had a speed advantage. But they… they had power. The first time she got the wind knocked out of her it was by something about the size of a bag of chips striking her shoulder blade… a gift from a fighter across the room. The force thrust her against metal shelving face first and she partially crumpled to the floor. 

Just then there was an explosion from where she last saw Barnes. She spun around in time to see gun fragments fly away from him, and he had blood across his face and chest from something. But he was still on his feet.

Her closest opponent reached for her and she met him with a shock from her bracelet. He was stunned enough to catch her Pele kick before he went down, and she quickly unsheathed and buried a knife under his side ribs. He was trying to get up but couldn’t quite manage it yet.

It had been a while since Nat sensed an arrow fly. What’s Clint doing?

She realized just what he had been up to with one glance at the debris-littered, now partially dismantled catwalks. As his hair flashed for a moment in a dark corner, she watched one of the smaller fighters launch himself almost directly upwards to catch the catwalk 25 feet above his head. He flipped himself on top of it and began running toward the general area where Barton’s last arrows had come from… which was not quite where Clint currently was. He let fly an arrow at a fighter below… but his target saw it coming. He had time to build up some of that blue energy, and met Clint’s arrow with an energized palm… sending the sheath surreally back in the direction it came from, with the splinters hitting Barton’s general vicinity like hollow-point bullets.

Another opponent was now in front of Nat. “So are you all the strong, silent type?” she asked. She got no reply but a sneer.

When he lunged, she feinted left into a low roll and punched him in the side of the knee. On the way down he nearly sent his full blue force through her forearm. As it was, he brushed her finger. The pain was excruciating, and several bones in her hand must now be broken. But her blade was accessible with her other hand, and soon enough he was at least preoccupied with his own blood loss.

Another fighter was directly behind her, with an arrow broken off in one of his wrists. She lifted herself up with her one good hand by the handle of a nearby vise, and used both legs to slam her opponent’s better hand into the machinery. With the vise closed, she bought herself time to keep a scissor lock on him while she zapped the guard attacking Barton. Two more eventually dispatched.

She looked around, and there were no more fighters standing on the factory floor. She looked up, and Barnes had just achieved the catwalk to catch one guard. Barnes had leapt onto the man’s back and clearly just snapped his neck. Nat just hoped that would slow the guy down soon. Barton was in close quarters with another. As Nat raised her arm to zap one or the other, Clint sent his guy falling into a rather pointy piece of equipment... and Barnes’ opponent met his metal arm, repeatedly, and collapsed. 

Nat was certain all three of them were counting at the same time. There were eleven very strange bodies, all seemingly deflating as they lay there. The present Avengers were now all alone. She looked at each of the other two and they all nodded affirmative… too tired to speak, but not in immediate danger from wounds. Nat took a moment to catch her breath. 

And then she surveyed the equipment in front of her in dread. There was less here than she’d bargained for… and no serum to be found. But what was here was just as disturbing. One pile in particular that she approached was quite ominous.

“What is this stuff?” Barnes wondered aloud, now from right behind her.

“Spare parts and tools,” she said with a shiver. “For a satellite launch.”

“What does that mean?” Barnes asked.

“Aerosol bomb?” Clint offered.

“That’s my guess,” Nat replied. 

“Doesn’t make sense,” Clint said. “Disperses it too far. They can’t have enough of this stuff to make a difference that way. Right?”

“They’ve still got the stone, they could make more,” Barnes offered. 

“No,” Clint argued. “We’ve heard nothing about this being used. This would have been on our radar. For whatever reason, they’ve not made more and they’ve had a limited amount. Limited.”

“Clint you don’t understand.” Nat began shaking, though she didn’t know why. “This is the serum. THIS, what they have, however they got it from the Stone, it’s THE active ingredient. The Soldiers in Siberia got the *homeopathic* version of this shit. The guys we just dealt with, these enhanced with these powers and this blue energy… they’re getting just a bit more exposure to something that got exposure to this stone! Even if they haven’t made any more serum… there may not be a minimum threshold for the impact this could have on human bodies if it’s dispersed in the atmosphere. Or if pregnant women are exposed? This is catastrophic.”

“God damnit.” Barton rubbed his face in fatigue. “Didn’t we *already* deal with that damned blue stone? Weren’t they supposed to take that to Asgard? Why is it here? Is there another one?”

“This one’s purple.” Barnes offered. They both stared at him. “We’re talking about the strange gem that Karpov had, right? The power these soldiers are throwing around might be blue, but I saw the stone. Once.” He swallowed. “It’s purple.”

Natasha shuddered. “Okay. Let me… let me get into the computer and see what I can find about the location of the launch.”

“And who’s outrunning us,” Clint offered.

“She’s not outrunning us,” Nat said. “At least not for long.”

Clint and Barnes stared.

“Dr. Isabel Marlowe. She’s a therapist.”

Barnes mouthed ‘therapist’, looked around and squinted at her. “What is that code for?”

“It’s code for therapist. She… helps people.”

“She’s not military?” Clint asked.

“No,” Natasha answered. “A civilian psychologist, well-respected for her talk therapy treatments for victims of mind control. She… she helped me.” Nat felt her stomach lurch. “Sharon and I both intended to pressure Barnes into seeing her eventually.”

“I’m good, thanks,” Barnes interjected.

Clint was still puzzling. “Then what’s the military connection that Leo would have helped you crack? The other leader of this mess?”

Natasha nodded. “Howard Stark’s connection at the Pentagon when he was toying with an Infinity Stone and finding new serum formulas.”

“Shit. Do I want to know?” Clint asked.

“Probably not. He’s Secretary of State right now.”

Barnes furrowed his brow and recalled a name. “Ross?”

“Ross. He and I have come to a recent agreement.”

Clint looked at her with concern. “You really pulled some shit on Ross? He’s got connections, and he was already out for Avenger blood, yours included.”

“And now I’ve made my position crystal clear. And he has clearly delineated reasons why he’ll stay away from certain projects that none of my friends and I want him working on.”

“The Avengers have that kind of pull?” Barnes asked.

“I’ve got a wider friends network than that. And not all of them have Steve Rogers’ moral compass,” Nat offered. “Some of them may have been present at the meeting to help me make my point.”

Barnes looked to be taking in the situation. “So, we need to find a bomb... that could give anybody in the world these powers. Or worse. And… defuse it. Somehow.”

“Yup,” Natasha answered.

“Do we know how to do that?” Barnes asked.

“I’m gonna guess the answer is ‘not yet’,” Clint offered.

Nat sighed. “Guess it’s time to assemble.”


	9. Chapter 9

Shit, he thought. Shit shit shit shit shit.

Okay. No, this is okay. This is alright. 

He took a deep breath. 

This is nothing he hadn’t handled before. He just had more… uh… mental discipline? Back then. Is that the word he really wanted? No that’s right, he thought. Yeah. If he were honest, it was true. He didn’t have that damned programming to keep him calmer and focused anymore. He had to keep his own head sorted. Which was a full time job some days.

Focus, Bucky. Okay. He wiped off some of the sweat dripping down his face. Why was Brazil always this hot?

Apparently the best place Natalia’s headshrinker could find to send this crap into the atmosphere was some remote satellite launch facility out here. And apparently, all you have to do to recruit Steve’s friends into a suicide mission is tell them the world depends on it. Even without the swanky setup Stark Jr used to give them. One rousing request from Steve and all of them - from the brooding teenager to hawkguy - packed up their shit and headed out to save the world. 

How does Steve always find these people?

And now he’s one of these people. Again. This freak show. Bearing down on a rocket about to launch. A broad daylight raid on a launch facility guarded by several dozen supernaturally powered individuals and one… therapist. 

Okay. Well. They had already scoped the place out and had their plan. Phase one: find an exploitable hole in the perimeter - preferably near the control tower - and take out those guards as quickly and quietly as possible. Check. They found a way in that involved taking out only two guards. It was definitely the easiest run-in they’d had with these guys. With the whole team against two, they’d even kept the guards off their radio. So it was still a stealth operation. 

From there, the archer and alien power girl fanned out to position themselves for max damage if they had to engage the outer guards, while the rest snuck further in either on foot or in a commandeered vehicle 

Phase two: near the entrance to the building, Natalia set off an electronic jammer they rigged up, so their opponents’ communication was disrupted at the source. Then, inside the front door, the six of them found themselves face-to-face with a line of six guards. 

Of course, Natalia with her injured hand sent herself into the pack first, getting her garrote around the nearest neck and spinning. Steve’s Girl was right behind her and landed a beautiful dropkick into the same guy’s face. Nat swung his momentum into a weapon and was knocking two guards’ heads together as Bucky selected a guy to take a metallic punch to the gut. A leg sweep from Steve sent Buck’s guy down for the count, and *something* from another fighter missed his teammates and blew a hole in a nearby wall. Scott and Sam were working on a third fighter as Bucky tangled up again. He landed a series of quick punches to his guy’s upper torso, pushing his opponent away from the rest of the fighting in the process. He felt another one coming up behind him just as his first guy’s head bounced off Bucky’s left jab and found the nearby wall. Bucky managed a surprise low kick to the guy behind him. A few more minutes of alternating stunning blows between the two, and one finally stopped getting up.

Four more guards then came barreling down a side hall. 

“Dammit,” Sam said. “I just…” He ducked some new glowing projectile and kicked a knee. “I just really don’t like any of these guys.” 

“Nat! Buck!” Steve tried to whisper into comms as he punched one in the solar plexus. “Go for the control room, we need to stop the launch!”

Natalia answered for them both, “We’re not leaving you with this many. We’ve got time.”

“Scott,” Sharon hollered. “Come with me!” She headed down a side hallway and Scott followed. Three of the guards peeled off and headed after them, sending something flying in Sharon’s direction.

Nat had just taken out another. Two were left standing. The ground shook, and not from the fighters among them. Steve yelled this time. “Get to the control room now! Sam and I will clean up here and follow the other team. Keep that rocket on the ground.”

Nat launched herself toward Bucky without warning. He got his hand positioned in time to boost her up into a nearby air duct. Bucky did his disappearing act and slipped down a side hall. 

The opposing troops’ strength and power might be terrifying, but stealth was not their primary skill set. There wasn’t a one that didn’t broadcast their presence yards away. He traveled unseen to the hallway outside the control room, and arrived right as Nat’s legs dropped out of the ceiling around the neck of the lone guard there. 

Bucky made a running charge, throwing a knife on the way and nailing the guy in the ribs. Nat let go of her sleeper hold as the guy charged up the blue shit and swung for her torso. Bucky used the distraction to take his knife back. He spun quickly out of the way as the injured fighter tried to send the power surge in his direction instead. He missed Bucky and pulverized part of a wall near him. Nat’s repeated kicks to his head from her suspended position were slowing him down though, and Bucky chanced one insertion of the knife in close quarters. He got away with it, and the guard collapsed slowly. The two of them rushed inside the control room.

At the primary control panel on the other side of the room stood a slight woman in her sixties, silver hair upswept in a meticulous, professional style. She stood there as though she had been waiting for them. 

Between her position at the controls and the two of them, there were about twenty other fighters. That same exaggerated form, that same swirl of blue in the air here and there.

Well. Shit. This was it. Time to do it. 

Have his team’s back. Protect Nat. 

Get through this crowd.

Bucky went on automatic pilot as bodies blurred around him. It was time to go to that place in his head… that non-thinking space of deadly survival. He knew enough by now about his opponents’ weaknesses, about their fight styles. Some were military-trained, some had little fight training at all. All were stronger than him. But while opponents stronger than him were rare, he had still trained for them and fought them. Hell, he had trained others to take down stronger opponents. He had trained Nat to do that. Exploit any weakness, keep moving, strike to kill. If this doc was really going to back them into this corner? Threaten the world, and his friends? Fine. She would have the Winter Soldier - the real one - and the Black Widow on her hands. No holding back. No mercy. 

He heard his own breath, the whirring of his arm, bones cracking. Sometimes Natalia was there with him, engaging in their fight-dance… moves they hadn’t made in over a decade, flowing out of them like instinct. He felt her weight come and go from his arms as they both used her momentum and deadly force over and over again as weapons to wield against their opponents. Sometimes she disappeared for minutes at a time, and Bucky tried not to worry about her. He could smell blood and gore. Every once in a while… yes. He saw a flash of red hair whipping around. Good. All is good. Keep moving. Keep killing.

Until no one was around him to attack anymore. Past the rush of blood in his ears, there was near silence.

He could feel a few wounds of his own as though they were distant ideas. A thigh maybe? A shoulder blade? Nat had one last flailing guard caught in her garrote. And one more stood by the doctor, unmoving. Guarding her like Bucky would often guard his handlers. Ready to give his life for hers. Did he have any real reason to offer that loyalty? Bucky wondered. Had she used her knowledge to get in his head?

Nat spoke as her last opponent slumped to the floor. “I can’t let you do this, doctor.”

“You don’t have much choice. The commands have already been given, the sequence started. It’s just a few moments more to the perfect launch time.”

“Why do this? Why?” Jesus, Natalia looked to Bucky like she might cry. “This so far afield from anything I ever knew about you. You’re a healer.”

“You have no idea the good this will do, Miss Romanoff.”

“Forcing this power on everyone?? This danger?! With God knows what long term effects on even the best outcomes?”

“You don’t understand the effects. Natasha-”

“You helped me. You helped me gently. Kindly. With safe, tested methods. I wouldn’t be… I wouldn’t be intact. I wouldn’t be myself, if you hadn’t done the work you did. How can you do this?”

The doctor’s eyes were glistening too. Poor Natalia. 

“The effect, Natasha. It’s not just bulking up and throwing sparks.” She tossed those deadly powers away with a gesture. Wow, this woman was farther gone than he was. “The influence of the Stone profoundly rewrites several areas of the brain! The amygdala, for example. Natasha, think about it. Think about how hard it was to do the work we did. How many wretched sleepless nights did you have? How many do you still have? The trauma, it’s still with you, isn’t it? How many voices are in your head every day? With this we can eliminate lingering trauma responses forever! The suffering. The suffering related to surviving, just gone.”

“At the expense of what, doctor?”

“Side effects, details, we’ll adapt and figure it out. We just need to live without the pain a while. Natasha, the pain... the loss and fear, the violence it brings. We can end all that.”

Bucky found himself speaking. “You’re ending violence by sending juiced-up supersoldier thugs after us all?!”

“That was only because you were threatening all of this! How much damage do we do, over and over again, these cycles of trauma and violence? This can end that for everybody!”

“No.” Natasha said sadly. She walked past the doc to a control panel. The remaining guard just let her… seemingly in shock himself. “No, you’re unleashing a new threat on the entire world. I can’t let you do that.”

Bucky heard the report of two rounds before he realized the doctor had a firearm. 

One second later the gun was in Bucky’s right hand while his left closed around her neck.

“Stop! Don’t!” Nat was giving him orders even as she stumbled at the smoking control panel, her left shoulder bleeding.

“Natalia!” Where was she hit? Bucky was panicking.

But Nat stood up straight and closed in on Marlowe. “Where’s the stone?”

The nutjob just looked at her. This was a friend of Nat’s?

“WHERE’S THE GODDAMN STONE?” Nat screamed.

The doctor looked sadly at each of them. “It’s… gone.”

“Gone?” Nat asked.

“Offworld. Years ago. Hidden. It’s… it’s so powerful. We needed to… we needed to prepare ourselves first. As a planet. The stone is safe. Until we can embrace its power fully.”

Nat looked so heartbroken, Bucky was having a hard time not snapping the woman’s neck. “You knew, “Nat said. “You knew this is wrong. You knew how many people you were going to hurt.”

“You don’t understand-”

A thunderous boom wrenched the whole building. They could feel the growing heat through the walls as the rocket outside began its buildup to takeoff.

Well. Shit. That’s it. 

Stop the rocket. 

That’s about to be unstoppable. 

Bucky forgot Marlowe and ran for the only window in the room. He crashed through it, landing in a roll and bolting across the tarmac. He heard somebody land behind him, and come after him, but he didn’t look back, didn’t slow down.

Stop the rocket. How do you stop a rocket? He didn’t seem to have that training in his head.

Whoever it was back behind him, they hadn’t caught up by the time he reached the umbilical tower. He took the stairs as fast as he could to a height where he could… what? What would stop this? 

Dammit, Bucky thought, think.

He kept sprinting up the stairs as the smoke plume grew. He could barely see the rocket anymore. He finally gave up on gaining altitude and took off down the next access ramp he could.

He stopped halfway down. Where could he throw his body that would gum up the works? His arm, maybe he could... 

At that thought, Dr. Marlowe’s guard overtook Bucky and left him there, heading down the ramp for the rocket. He had summoned a cloud of power around him, and he leapt from the ramp -- a dark blue comet slamming into the side of the rocket. 

The heat and sound that came next were overwhelming. Bucky ran for the opposite side of the tower as fast as he could, launching himself wide over the edge to escape at least part of the blowback from the blast. 

He was dimly aware of landing hard and rolling before he passed out.

 

-=-=-=-=-

 

Bucky considered his options. And then he decided he would sit right where he was… perhaps for quite some time. 

Steve and Sam had stayed behind with the doc and the others. Once the rocket was destroyed, the remaining guards stopped fighting anyone. Whatever mental capacity they had seem pretty centered on Marlowe and her mission. Steve said Tony would quietly meet with them at the launch site, get them all taken into custody. He’d have folks remove the contaminated casing that - while shielding the serum from the blast - somehow got busted open later and the contents destroyed by a chemical fire. Steve had insisted Bucky be gone when Tony got there, just to keep tension lower. That was fine with him. Buck had no interest in being in Stark’s presence again. 

Shit’s too heavy.

Buck was just fine nursing this concussion in this not uncomfortable seat, on this flight out of there.

Oh shit. Shit shit shit. Why is she up? Why is she close? Dammit. 

She walked past him and drowsily sat down on his left. 

Dammit. 

Then she leaned her good shoulder into his, and pulled back again.

He chanced a brief look directly at her. “What?”

“You. Being all good guy.”

He realized he had leaned a little away from her after she said that, and righted himself.

“I’m just hanging out with Steve.”

Natalia scoffed. “Right.”

She still had only their emergency dressing on her wound. “Get your shoulder looked at.”

“Sam’s busy.”

Bucky looked over at Sam, who was in fact involved in addressing significant injuries on Tic-Tac and Barton. Why the hell wasn’t he helping Natalia? 

“So,” she lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “I have these songs I want to play you.”

...what did she just say?

“Songs?” he repeated.

“Yes.”

He looked at the others. Sam had clearly heard her, and had furrowed his brow. But he was also clearly trying to not let Nat know that he heard. 

Bucky asked her, “Why?”

“I thought you’d like them.”

Some days he felt like his grip on reality was tenuous. “When did you think this?”

Nat blinked at him. “At various points in time from 2004 until... I guess the last one was about three months ago.”

He squinted at her.

Her tone sharpened a bit. “Well if you don’t want to hear them-”

“No! I mean, that’s fine.” He squinted some more. “You really need to… Sam?!”

“Busy!”

“See?”

Bucky sighed.

“Do you…” he groped for something to say.

And then he stopped. And he really, really looked at her. 

It was her. The same, but different. Like him. There was… something in her eyes. He didn’t know what it was. But he thought it might not be hate. 

“You want some help with that?” Bucky pointed at her shoulder.

She thought for just a moment, then she grinned. “Yeah.”

Shit. Shit shit shit.

He got up to get supplies.


	10. Chapter 10

It was surreal that the backpack didn’t weigh any more than it did in her hand, considering all it carried.

Sharon had waited until the others were busy, and found Bucky alone on the back porch. She approached him quietly, with the bag behind her. Once he noticed her, and what she had behind her back, she couldn’t find any more words. So, she just stretched out her arm and offered his memories back to him.

He was still for a moment, and as he stared at her his eyes took on a sheen. Then he reached for the bag, and opened it to see all the notebooks there. He wrapped his arms around the whole bag and just stared out at the Barton pasture a minute. Then he searched her face for words.

“Did you give up a job to steal all this?”

“Eh.” Sharon shrugged and propped herself on the railing with the best view of the pasture. “I wasn’t gonna last there much longer without shooting my boss, so. It was probably for the best.”

Bucky smiled, and sat back in his chair, bag in lap. “You’ve got a mean-as-hell roundhouse kick. You could save a bullet and use that on him.”

Sharon smiled. They sat quietly and comfortably, watching the fireflies come out.

-=-=-=-=-

“Momma’s busy, Aunt Nat, will you do my hair?”

“Oh, sweetie I’m sorry. I’m gonna have a hard time with my hand hurt like this.”

“But I need fancy hair for the party!”

It had been declared there shall be a party. It would be a victory celebration for all they’d accomplished, and won back. Even those with someone to run off to soon, like Sam, were staying one more night for it. And one of the most vocal supporters of said party was Lila. Nat was sad she wouldn’t be able to help her much with primping.

“Lila!” Steve caught their attention with a smile. Nat was immediately curious to see what Steve might offer the girl. “Did you know that there is somebody in this living room right now who has won an award for his talent at braiding hair?”

There was a groan from the heap on the couch, and a gasp from Lila. She shook her head. Nat could tell this was gonna get good. 

“It’s that guy, right over there. And he’s a sucker for the word ‘please.’”

There was an annoyed exhale at that statement, and the couch lump adjusted his hat to cover more of his face. Clint’s daughter - never one to be deterred by gruff and grumpy mercenary types around the house - marched right over to the heap Steve had pointed at.

“Hello!”

After a beat, the lump shifted his hat off his eyes.

“We haven’t met. My name is Lila.”

He stared at the fearless girl. Then he extended a hand. “Bucky,” he mumbled. “Howyado.”

She shook his hand. “I’m well, thank you. Would you please braid my hair for the party tonight?”

Bucky looked at her and sighed.

“Oh please! Please please please please!” She jumped up and down a little.

Bucky winced at the cuteness, then scratched his neck in near-complete resignation. “Do you have a comb?”

Lila squeaked and ran to gather supplies, while Bucky gave Steve a death glare. Nat was certain that the rest of the room was enjoying the entire situation almost as much as she was.

“An award??” Clint was gleeful.

Bucky rubbed his eyes in frustration. “It wasn’t an award. It was just a… a little...” His silver fingers flailed around a bit trying to form his thought, until he gave up and shrugged. “A blue ribbon.”

The room laughed. Sam offered, “First place! I am impressed.”

“Shut up. I didn’t want to, it just… happened.”

Lila returned with a comb, a ribbon, a headband, a teddy bear, a sheet of stickers, and about a dozen hair ties. She hopped up and spun to offer the back of her head to Bucky.

“What kind of braid do you want?”

“A French braid!”

“Alright, how many?”

“Two.”

“Only two? What about four?”

Lila turned around wide-eyed, nodded, and turned back around. Bucky began to work. Nat would not have called his initial speed or style awkward at all… certainly not in comparison to any other famous WWII vets she’d seen braid a young girl’s hair. But it was clear after a minute he had just been getting warmed up and was now finding his groove.

Most folks in the room looked for an excuse to stop whatever prep they were doing to watch the spectacle. Even Sam stopped his phone calls searching for a karaoke machine. Bucky apparently found it difficult to balance concentrating on the hairstyle and glaring at all of them. But his work was gentle and diligent.

Sometimes, Nat could see Lila wrinkle her nose when Bucky used his left hand to pick up locks of hair.

He had noticed. “Does it hurt when I use this hand?” he eventually asked.

“No,” she said cheerily. “Those fingers are just a little chilly.”

“Hunh. These fingers?” Bucky pressed his left hand against her left ear. She squealed and moved away.

“Don’t squirm! You can’t squirm when I’m doing this, now.”

She giggled and got back into place.

Nat heard Sam’s exclamation - “Oh NOW it’s a party!” - as Scott, Wanda and Laura arrived with several bags of food. Nat was getting excited now. Clint and Laura knew how to cook. The real question was, did Nat want to find some dancing shoes, or not?

Lila suddenly shrieked with laughter, but was now standing as far from Bucky as she could get with half her hair still in his right hand. He was trying to make conciliatory gestures with his left arm.

“Alright alright, I won’t grab that ear anymore. Okay?”

She tried getting her giggling under control as she came in close again. He immediately reached around to lay his metal hand on her other ear. She spun away again, and was laughing so hard she was having a hard time breathing.

“You’re so squirmy! Why are you so squirmy? Squirmer.”

She was pointing in a mock angry way. But she firmly said “No more of that!”

Bucky nodded and said “Okay, no more. I promise.”

She got back into place with a bit of a huff. He was true to his word and continued his work without interruption.

She soon asked him, “Are you a big brother?”

Bucky pursed his lips into something between a smile and a frown. “Why?”

“Because you’re really good at annoying little girls.”

Clint laughed out loud. Bucky and Steve both smiled. That’s my girl, Nat thought. “Lila!” Clint said as he attempted a straight face. “Be more polite to somebody doing you a favor!”

Bucky answered her. “Okay kid, you got me there. I am a big brother.”

“I knew it!”

“And you... have some fancy hair for the party.”

Lila looked thrilled. She whipped her four braids around as she ran off to find a mirror, throwing a thank you over her shoulder halfway up the stairs. Nat had to admit, it looked great. Bucky has a lot of sense memory then, if he’s replicating his sisters’ hairstyles from the 1930’s. Hm, guess it’s like riding a bike, she thought. Good to know.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Nat had such a lovely voice. Steve had never realized that. And she and Sam both had a gift for performing. Under the guise of catching Bucky up on popular music he might have missed, the two of them alone and together had sung through what had to be most of the catalog on the song machine. Sharon and Clint both had taken a few tunes as well. Right now Scott was doing very well with a song Steve recognized as being by Frank Sinatra.

Steve was enjoying a moment of quiet on the front porch, under the stars. He had a great view of the farm over one shoulder and his friends on the other.

He could see Natasha and Bucky through the wide kitchen window, munching off various platters. Steve was awestruck at Bucky talking very animatedly about something. And Nat was clearly enjoying herself. She leaned in close to him, trusting and familiar, and… and might have just stolen something silver out of Bucky’s pocket that he was now trying to take back from her. Steve chuckled as he turned his head to give them privacy. He hadn’t yet had the time to wrap his head around...around whatever happened before between the two of them. He wasn’t sure it was his business. But, the thought of them both happy made his heart swell.

“Hey you.”

Steve felt himself smile wide as Sharon joined him on the porch, two drinks in her hand. “You need another glass of Sam’s punch.”

“Obviously.” He took the cup while she cozied up into his arms.

“This is pretty great, isn’t it?” she asked.

“The party? The farm? Or Sam’s punch?”

“Yes.”

He hugged her tightly. There was no knowing what life would bring tomorrow, as usual. But here, right now… it brought him a happy ending. He relished it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Comments warmly welcomed.


End file.
